Evangelion Exchange
by Nanpakun
Summary: Evangelion with a twist! A strange angel plummets to earth with not one but two A.T. fields. The detonation and impact of each field in contact with the Eva units produces some startling results!
1. Chapter 1

-1The angel was plummeting towards earth with meteoric speed. Poised on the ready, long rifles charged, Unit 01 and Unit 02 crouched, awaiting orders from Central Dogma. The assault by the angel was unexpected and had somehow penetrated the atmosphere before any of NERV's sensors had detected it. According to the readouts feeding in to the MAGI, the angel's energy readings were massive.

"I've never seen anything like it," First Lieutenant Makoto Hyuga said, perplexed. "The angel has two patterns."

"Two patterns?" Misato asked, folding her arms and staring hard at the computer monitor.

"The first is blue," Hyuga took the cue to continue. "Like usual. But there's another pattern underlying the first. Something I've never seen before. It's red and helical in structure."

Kasuragi frowned. "A new type of A.T. field, maybe."

"Not likely," Shigeru Aoba chimed in. "The atomic structure of the A.T. field is what gives the angels the blue reading. Angels can't survive without the A.T. field, so for an angel to possess both an A.T. field and an anti-A.T. field at the same time is simply impossible. What we're seeing is two dissimilar wavelengths battling for dominance. Almost as if the angel has a split personality."

"How will that affect the battle? Does it pose a threat to the Evangelions?'

Shigeru and Makoto exchanged glances. "There's no way to tell, Major," Hyuga surmised. "The MAGI just record data, they don't interpret. That's our job. But we can't interpret data that's incomplete, and the angel is masking our ability to analyze the second frequency. Almost like deliberate subterfuge."

Misato frowned. "But you said the blue wavelength and the red one were battling for dominance."

"That's what's strange," the bespectacled programmer went on. "The angel has an A.T. field of incredible mass, that's for sure. But it's suppressing a second, auxiliary field. The scary part is that if we destroy the first A.T. field, there's no way of telling what's behind door number one."

"So," concluded the purple-haired commander, "either we let the angel destroy NERV, or we take our chances, destroy the angel's A.T. field, and open Pandora's box and see what the second energy mass is beneath it."

"Right," Aoba nodded. "It could be an amount of energy equivalent to a cigarette lighter. It could be a synthetic nuclear bomb with a yield of more than 10 teratons of TNT. Enough explosive power to bring about a nuclear winter. There's no way of telling..."

A hushed silence fell upon the NERV control room. All of the staff personnel ceased typing. Misato turned around to find Gendo Ikari hunched over his lectern, hands clasped, expressionless.

"If there's no objections from high command," she said at last, "blow that thing out of the sky. If the earth is going to be destroyed, then it won't be destroyed without a fight."

"Right," Hyuga said.

Inside Unit 01, Shinji's intercom crackled. "Unit 01, do you copy?"

"R-right!" Shinji responded. "I'm here!"

"Good," Misato said. "As soon as the target enters the troposphere, blow it out of the sky."

"Destroy it," Shinji muttered. "Right."

"And Shinji?"

"Yes?"

There was a pause.

"Good luck, Shinji. Misato out."

Asuka received a similar message. Both EVAs aimed their weapons at the sky. The clouds began to turn a dark and menacing shade of yellow-green. They swirled like a vortex and a bright blue light became visible. Flames scorched the heavens as the angel's entry into the lower atmosphere descended like a blazing comet.

"Five seconds," Shinji said.

"Four," said Asuka.

"Three," they chimed in unison. "Two, one. _Fire_"

With an ear-shattering hiss, the two lascannons spewed forth beams of laser light that collided with the angel's A.T. field. An enormous red sphere--previously invisible--shimmered around the angel, deflecting the attacks.

"It's no good!" Shinji screamed as the smoke cleared.

"Scheisse!" scowled Asuka, firing a second shot toward the angel. Once more, the blast was easily negated.

"The rifles aren't strong enough to penetrate the A.T. field!" Makoto shouted over the din of the alarm systems. "Concentrate every heavy weapons battery NERV has on that angel!"

Outside, perched atop the various hills surrounding NERV, the Tokyo-3 defense systems whirred to life and began to unload a furious barrage of missiles and lasers at the rapidly descending angel. Again and again, the A.T. field proved solid, deflecting all of the attacks.

_It's not working_, Shinji thought. _The A.T. field's too strong! I've...I've gotta do something_!

Taking the throttle of his EVA, Shinji urged Unit 01 into a sprint. Asuka's eyes bulged as she saw Shinji speeding away toward the angel from her periphery.

"Shinji! You're idiot! What are you doing?!"

Asuka hurried her EVA into a run. Shinji positioned himself directly beneath the angel's trajectory.

Aoba swiveled in his chair. He looked at Misato, white as a sheep. "Major... I... I think he's going to try to..."

"Don't you _dare_ try to catch that angel, Shinji!" Misato screamed through the intercom. "That angel has two A.T. fields with enough energy to melt through your EVA like a progknife through warm butter!"

"I've got to try Misato!" Shinji retorted. Asuka ran up beside him. "Help me, Asuka!" said the third child.

The redhead grimaced. "This has got to be the stupidest plan I've ever tried!"

Unit 01 and Unit 02 positioned themselves, and braced for impact. The angel descended in a fiery ball of heavenly smite. It collided with the EVAs in a brilliant flash of bright light. Shinji squinted. The heat was intense. His EVA was forced into a kneeling position from the immense force of the collision. Likewise, Asuka was diminished to a crouch, struggling desperately to prevent the angel from smashing into the earth. Suddenly, the red shield beyond the A.T. field flickered to life, expanded rapidly, and engulfed the two EVAs. The LCL within the EVA rose several degrees, all of the electronics within the EVA short-circuited, and both Shinji and Asuka passed out into unconsciousness.

---

Shinji's eyelids flickered, slowly opening. As his eyes focused, he found himself staring at the ceiling of one of NERV's medical wards. He was dimly aware of the beeping of a heart monitor somewhere off to his right. He rubbed his forehead and turned to his left. Then he saw it.

Beside him, about 10 feet away, was a hospital bed identical to his own. Upon it lay the unconscious body of a brown-haired boy about fifteen years old, a labyrinth of tubes attached to his body. Attached to the body of the third child, Shinji Ikari.

"Wh...what?" Shinji said aloud. A chill ran down his spine as he found the voice that came out of his mouth wasn't right. "My voice..." he said. It was a voice he knew and recognized all too well, but it wasn't his own. Shinji looked at his hands, then his arms, then his chest--which was certainly more ample than he'd remembered it. Turning whiter than rice in a cup of milk on a paper plate in the middle of a blizzard, he cautiously peaked down the front of his hospital gown. And screamed.

The door to the medical room hissed open and NERV personnel came rushing in, Misato fast at their heels.

"Mi...Misato!" Shinji gagged, clambering out of bed and, finding himself not used to the new lightness of his body, slipped and fell to the floor. The tiles, which were sparkling clean as a result of hygienic practices, reflected an image that rendered the third child catatonic. Staring back at him was the visage of Soryu Asuka Langley, the second child. His touched a shaking hand to his pale, freckled cheeks, took one of the fiery red locks of Asuka's hair between his fingertips. By the time the doctors were upon him, he had broken into a cold sweat and was shaking violently. The medics tried to help Shinji back onto the bed, but he doubled over and vomited, and they drew back hesitantly. Misato rushed in and helped Shinji lie back on the bed.

"Shinji," she said. "Shinji, focus! Focus on me! Stay with me!"

Shinji's recently blue eyes darted about the room wildly. It was spinning. Clearly, he was in a dream. He'd wake up, and everything would be fine. He'd be his old self, and the NERV command would be throwing a party for the angel that he and Asuka had destroyed. _He__and__Asuka_.

Suddenly, Shinji craned his neck and saw once more his unconscious body on the other bed. He tried to rise, but Misato pinned him down.

"Shinji, listen to me," Misato said soothingly, noting the obvious terror in Shinji's eyes. "I know this will be difficult for you to understand... but... there's been an accident. The angel you and Asuka destroyed... it's A.T. field... it... you..."

Shinji grabbed the collar of Misato's jacket. "Misato! What happened to me! Why do I look and sound like Asuka? Why--why is my body unconscious!"

"There's no easy way to say this, Shinji," Misato said, biting her lip. "The detonation of the angel's two A.T. fields simultaneously swapped your consciousness into Asuka's body and the hers into yours. You two have essentially switched places."

_To be continued..._


	2. Chapter 2

-1Shinji stood over the cot upon which Asuka--within his own body--lay, unconscious. It was a strange sight, to behold oneself in slumber. An out of body experience, but during the waking life. Shinji's body looked so peaceful, like the anxiety and woes of his life had all drained away like cockpit LCL after a mission. He turned to Misato, who was staring at Shinji with her mouth agape.

"What?" Shinji said nervously.

"I... I just can't believe... I can't believe you've become Asuka," Misato said. She stifled a laugh.

Shinji looked cross. "It isn't funny!" he retorted. "You can switch us back, right?"

"Well, first you--Asuka--will have to regain consciousness. I'm sure she's going to be thrilled to find herself trapped in your body."

Something occurred to Shinji. "Misato... how did you know we'd switched places?"

Misato sad upon Shinji's bed. She excused the medics, leaving herself and Shinji alone. "When the A.T. fields detonated," she began, "and your consciousnesses were displaced, Units 01 and 02 suffered what might be compared to an epileptic seizure. You see, the EVAs, like humans, have souls of their own. I'm sure you're aware that the soul of your mother, Yui Ikari, is present inside your EVA, Shinji."

The boy nodded. "Yes... I... I'm aware of that."

"Well, when you two switched bodies, the souls of your EVAs followed you as well. Because the EVAs are, in some way, spiritually and psychologically bound to their pilots--which is why our attempts to designate another pilot to an already assigned EVA have failed--the consciousness of the EVAs were also transferred. Thus, Unit 02 went berserk--something we've never seen before--and killed the angel. The MAGI completely recorded and analyzed all of the data and we can clearly isolate the point in time during which the switch occurred, only we haven't been able to figure out how or why."

"So... the EVAs got transferred also?" Shinji wondered.

"Right," affirmed Katsuragi.

Shinji thought for a moment. "It still doesn't add up," he surmised. "Lucky guesses and MAGI data aside, how could you have known I switched with Asuka?"

Misato rose from the bed and walked over to where Shinji was poised over the cot, staring at his body.

"There's something else," she said. Shinji stared at her expectantly. "Well... you see," Misato started, "although your consciousnesses may have been transferred, there was something else that happened."

"What is it, Misato?"

"Well... although your mind and spirit may have been transferred without a hitch, we've gathered that something different happened with your memory."

Shinji paled. "My memory?"

"Yes, Shinji. Before you went unconscious, we recorded you and Asuka screaming over the intercoms that your minds were being invaded by a torrent of thoughts and visions that weren't your own. We analyzed what was said, and chewed up the data, and we determined that your memories Shinji, and Asuka's in kind, were copied, and duplicates made."

"Duplicate memories?" Shinji marveled.

"Yes, Shinji-kun," Misato said softly. "Essentially, you and Asuka now share each others' memories as well as your own."

Shinji felt weak in the knees. "I... I need to sit down," he said.

"We're already analyzing the dead angel and trying to reconstruct all the data we can on the special A.T. field that seems to have caused the swap. But Shinji, I must warn you, you may suffer from visions or hallucinations resulting from your mind playing catch-up from absorbing 15 years of someone else's memories. Ritsuko was shocked neither of you showed permanent brain damage."

Shinji pointed at the cot. "How do you know I didn't?" he cried. "I'm unconscious!"

"You passed out before Asuka did," the major informed the third child. "Asuka actually was conscious for several minutes while she absorbed all of your memories. It was what we recorded from her that led us to form our predictions about the scenario. Being awake for several minutes while years of memories are being implanted into your mind is horrific, Shinji. When Asuka awakens, she'll be scared, in pain, and probably overwhelmed with conflicting emotions. She'll need your support more than anyone else's. You two now know more about each other than any two humans on this planet can ever hope to understand about one another."

"Well what am I supposed to do, Misato?" Shinji asked. "I...this isn't even my body... I feel..."

Misato watched him closely. His cheeks were burning.

"I just feel like...like I've taken something that isn't mine... I feel like I'm doing something horrible."

Misato sighed with relief. "Shinji-kun, none of this is your fault. This job... fighting the angels... things happen. You knew the risks when you signed up for the task. The best you can do is adapt to the situation and do the best you can."

Shinji nodded slowly, staring at his hands. He curled his fingers slowly, then uncurled them, repeating the motion several times. He extended his arm and flexed his muscles. "Misato, it feels really weird," he said at length.

"It'll take some getting used to, that's for sure," Misato grinned.

Suddenly, there was a loud growl from Asuka's stomach. Shinji reddened. "I...I guess she hasn't eaten in a while."

Misato nodded. "Head down to the cafeteria, Shinji. You must be famished. Some nutrients will probably do you good." She knelt down and procured the neatly folded pile of clothing that had been left for Shinji beside the bed. "Put these on and go eat," Misato said, turning and heading for the door. "I'll see if Ritsuko has learned anything else from the MAGI."

"Um... Mi...Misato?" Shinji whimpered.

The major turned. Shinji was holding up a bra pinched between two fingers. "You...you can't be serious," he whispered.

Misato frowned. "Well you can't walk around in a hospital gown all day," she said. "I know you've seen me put them on enough times to know the fundamentals."

Shinji went stiff as a board and flushed an uncharted shade of crimson. "I...I...I..."

Misato sighed. "Shinji, one of these days," she muttered, "you're going to have to grow up and become a man. You might as well learn the tricks of the trade now."

Misato reached for Asuka's hospital gown.

"What are you doing?!" shrieked Shinji.

"Stripping you," Misato replied casually.

"You...you can't! I mean... I...it's not..."

"Shinji, take the gown off," said Misato sternly.

Shinji blanched, and gazed over at the bed where his body lay, peacefully sleeping.

"It's Asuka body," Shinji whimpered. "I couldn't..."

"Shinji-kun," the purple-haired NERV commander said. "What's the big deal? Honestly. I know you've seen her naked before. And I know you like her."

"Misato!" Shinji hissed, mortified.

"Think of this as a golden opportunity to see your crush in her birthday suit up close and personal," she teased with a smirk.

"You...you're horrible!" cried the third child.

"Put it on," Misato commanded.

There was an awkward silence. Shinji looked at his body one more time, certain that at any moment, Asuka would wake up and find himself stripping her body and pound the living daylights out of him. Misato was surprised to find the femininity with which Shinji crossed his arms, and lifted the gown up and over his head, then crossed his arms across his chest bashfully.

"Huh..." she huffed.

"What?" Shinji said quietly.

"You... you undressed yourself exactly like a girl."

Shinji body blushed. "Is... is that a bad thing?"

"N-no not at all," Katsuragi laughed. "I...I just didn't expect it. Maybe it's Asuka's memories of disrobing kicking in."

"Maybe..." said Shinji.

"Here, I'll show you how to do this," Misato said. "Lift your arms up."

Shinji hesitated.

"What, you think I've never seen breasts before?" Misato said.

Shinji raised his arms. Misato giggled slightly, taking in the sight. She was impossibly amused by the entire situation. _Not__bad__for__fifteen__either_, Misato thought to herself.

"You put the straps over your arms like this," she instructed him. "Now lean forward and fix the clasp in the back." Shinji did as he was told, although he couldn't remember a single more embarrassing moment in his entire lifetime. "It helps if you twist back and forth a bit to make sure your breasts are centered and set in the bra correctly. Of course, for someone of your size you shouldn't really have to worry about that yet."

"Misato, jeez!" Shinji suffered. "Do you think maybe I can keep my dignity in tact, if not my body?"

"I'm only teasing," Katsuragi grinned. She pointed. "I think the panties are self explanatory."

Shinji looked at the snowy white material folded over the bedrail. He shook his head.

"No. No way!"

"Shinji..." Misato growled.

"Misato! I'm not going to wear girls underwear!"

"Shinji-kun, in case you didn't notice, you're a girl."

Shinji looked cross. "I'm still me!" he stammered. "It's...it's just weird! I'm not going to do it!"

"Fine," said Misato, starting to turn. "I understand. So you'd rather show Asuka's naked body to all the NERV personnel. Gotcha."

A bead of sweat ran down Shinji's forehead. "Well...n-no...it's not that..."

"Then put on the bloody panties, Shinji. We're all understanding of this situation. Nobody's going to think you're weird." Misato put her hands on her hips and waited.

Reluctantly, Shinji crawled out of bed and stepped through the leg holes of the small, white garment. He hastily pulled them up and ran his fingers along the elastic down his buttocks to ensure the fabric hadn't twisted. This action caused Misato to grin enormously from ear to ear.

"That was cute," she chuckled.

"Stop it," Shinji said crossly, donning the light blue shorts and matching tank top that had been left for him. His stomach growled again. "Gosh, I'm hungry," he said, a silly look coming over his face. "I...I wonder what Asuka likes to eat..."

Misato watched the boy intently, amused (and relieved) that his endless consideration of others' needs and wants had survived the swap.

"She's not allergic to anything, is she Misato? A vegetarian maybe? I wouldn't want to... you know... mess anything up."

"No, Shinji-kun," Misato smiled. "But if I recall she's not a huge fan of shellfish. If you find yourself craving junk food, that's definitely Asuka's gullet you're feeling."

Shinji smiled. "Ok, Misato. Thanks."

"Meet me at Central Dogma in an hour, Shinji. Ok?"

Shinji nodded, then put on a pair of socks and thinly padded hospital slippers, and headed out of the medical ward.


	3. Chapter 3

As Shinji Ikari headed toward the elevators that led to the topside facilities, Shinji reflected absently on what Misato had told him

As Shinji Ikari headed toward the elevators that led to the topside facilities, Shinji reflected absently on what Misato had told him. According to her explanation, the simultaneous detonation of both A.T. fields had instigated the transference of consciousness between the second and third child. But from all Shinji knew of A.T. fields, the entire explanation seemed illogical and hastily conceived. Indeed, when dealing with angels, strange things had been known to happen, but the entire thing seemed incredibly far-fetched.

Now, the emotionally immature and socially awkward teen had borrowed the body of his roommate, the fiery and free-spirited Asuka, a highly competitive NERV pilot and also one of the most popular girls at school. And if that wasn't bad enough, his own body was currently in the hands of the most impulsive and egotistical person he knew. And he dreaded the moment Asuka came to and realized what had happened. In fact, death at the hands of an angel, he surmised, was more appealing a fate than facing the blitzkrieg of belittlement that he was certain to endure when Asuka found him in her body.

Shinji reached the elevators, and extended his arm to press the button. His fingernails, he noted, were long, his digits delicate and slender. He stared at his hands. Asuka's hands. It was hard to believe, he thought, how such a fragile creature could be so combative and warlike. Even her hair, he reflected, was silky. Her skin smelled different than his own, something he'd never noticed while in his own body, even during those horrendously awkward moments of bungling intimacy. He started wondering just what it was that had made Asuka the person she'd turned out to be.

And then it came, unbidden and startling quickly. A sharp pain wracked his mind, and he clutched his head. A vision appeared. He saw a door that was slightly ajar. An eerie, red glow emanated from the room within. There was a nauseating feeling in the pit of his stomach as he instinctively pushed the door open. The red light engulfed him as his eyes adjusted to the dim atmosphere. It was a room in a hospital ward, not unlike the one he'd woken up in not long ago, but the smell of rotten fruit hung in the air and stung his nostrils. He covered his mouth just as his eyes fell upon the cot, and the lifeless body that hung suspended above it. The bed linens had been knotted and fastened together to create a noose which had been fastened to metallic crossbeams behind one of the panels of the ceiling. And somehow, instantly, Shinji knew the dead body to be Asuka's mother.

He wanted to scream, but he couldn't. Instead, he urinated upon the floor of the room, contaminating what was otherwise an intensely sterile chamber. He felt dizzy, and wanted to flee, but his feet remained rooted firmly in place. The glazed-over lifeless eyes of the woman hanging above the hospital bed seemed to fix upon him, glaring at him accusingly, as if to say, _This is your fault, and I will never forgive you_. Shinji felt bile rising in his throat. He began to sweat. His hands clenched into fists. He whirled around and found himself staring at three men dressed to the nines, their faces obscured by shadow. There was an ambiguous quality to each of them, and these men he did not know, but he could sense their eyes upon him. One of them pointed, and seemed to say, _This is your fault_, repeatedly chanting it like a mantra. Finally, Shinji screamed.

"Third child," came a voice, soft and whispery. "You only have to press it once."

Shinji opened his eyes and realized he was rapidly jamming his fingers against the elevator button repeatedly. He blinked, shocked, but feeling a sense of relief that he'd only been daydreaming, and turned to find the source of the voice. There stood Rei Ayanami, her expression unreadable as unusual, still adorned in her school uniform, staring at him with her big, red eyes.

For a split second, a flash of annoyance shot through him. How long had she been standing there? Why did she always have to sneak up on him like that? _What the hell is wrong with you, _he almost snapped, but he checked himself.

"Rei, thank God," he said, and despite himself, he hugged her. Even Rei could not mask her surprise at this, but she didn't smile or show any annoyance, or reciprocate the hug, rather, she waited until he was finished, then brushed her blouse off once he'd released her. "I was having a nightmare or something," he admitted.

"I heard what happened," she said informatively, and to the point. "Major Katsuragi briefed me on your situation and asked me to… assist you in making the transition."

"What transition?" Shinji asked.

Rei stared for a moment. "In becoming Asuka," she replied finally.

"No, no," Shinji stammered, blushing slightly. "This is only temporary."

Rei began to fumble through her bag. "Misato gave me some things I'm supposed to go over with you," the blue-haired EVA pilot said.

"Huh? Like what?"

"Your new school curriculum," the other said. "NERV's already notified the school and—"

Only at that very moment did Shinji realize the extent of the impact that this transformation would have. As usual, news traveled swiftly through NERV's grapevine, and he was sure everyone at the school, his teachers and his friends, already knew about the situation, and there was no way he'd be able to avoid facing them, even if he tried hiding out at NERV for a day or two until they figured out how to change him back to his old self. He imagined Toji Suzuhara's glee at discovering his best friend's new body, and also Kensuke, who would no doubt already be planning ways to film an extensive documentary on Shinji's experiences as a girl.

"…and later on we'll go over the proper application of _these_," Rei continued, pulling out a small box from her knapsack. Shinji stared for a moment before realizing what she was holding was a box of tampons.

"No way!" he objected boldly. "There's just no way!"

Rei started to walk towards him. Shinji backpedalled defensively. "N-n-no Rei wait! Listen! Really, we can talk this over!"

But the first child walked past him and into the elevator whose door had opened behind him. Shinji breathed a sigh of relief. After the door closed, there was an incredibly awkward silence. Shinji snuck a glance at Rei who did not seem nearly as uncomfortable as he.

"Um, Rei?"

"Yes?"

"Is it… is it… tough… you know… is it difficult… being female?"

Rei appeared to reflect upon the question, but after a moment she shook her head. "I have always been female, and have never been male, so I am unable to make such a comparison."

"Yeah, I know, but I mean, like, do you ever _not like_ being a girl?"

The first child seemed to honestly give his question as much consideration as she could before replying, "It isn't something I think about," she said at length.

"Well what _do_ you think about?" Shinji asked impulsively. "Food? Shopping? _Boys?_"

At that last item in his list, both of them reddened considerably in the face, and Shinji was mortified such a thing had come from his own mouth. He could tell he'd made the first child uncomfortable, and he tried to cover his tracks.

"Well I mean, I'm just curious like what girls think about and stuff… I mean… never mind, it was stupid…"

For a moment, Shinji thought Rei seemed to struggle with trying to put something into words, but when she finally opened her mouth to speak, the elevator door opened.

"…but I mean, there is something to be said about a woman in a lab coat," special inspector Ryoji Kaji was saying, laying the flattery on thick to Dr. Ritsuko Akagi, who stood beside him, arms folded exasperatingly across her ample chest. Suddenly, Kaji's eyes fell upon Shinji, and he grinned broadly.

"Ah, Asuka," he smirked. He ogled Shinji up and down, making the boy extremely self-conscious. Kaji's eyes roamed lecherously over his adolescent breasts, making him feel extremely repulsed, and yet, made his heart begin to thump erratically in his chest. His cheeks burned. "What, no hug from Tokyo's premium red head? Has it been that long that you've forgotten me?"

Ritsuko couldn't help but chortle. "Kaji, you pervert, that's Shinji."

Kaji's brow twitched. "I'm sorry, what?"

"In the recent battle with the angel, Asuka and Shinji switched bodies. That's Shinji you're hitting on, you pedophile."

Kaji straightened himself, stroking his five o'clock shadow. "Doesn't look like Shinji," he muttered, his eyes still fixating on Shinji's bust.

Rei walked out of the elevator past Shinji. "I'm heading to school now," she told Shinji. "I'll be stopping by your apartment tonight to help out Major Katsuragi."

"Oh… okay," Shinji replied.

"One more thing," Rei added. "Your father wants to see you."

There was nothing Shinji Ikari feared more than visitations with his father, and this would be no exception. In fact, this was worse. He was certain that he'd be blamed for this catastrophe, maybe even exiled from NERV and forced to live as a girl for the rest of his life, an unimaginable possibility that made him feel like fainting. Whatever it was, it had to be bad for his father to request a personal audience with him, since the two barely spoke as it was.

Kaji walked past Shinji, giving him a slap on the ass.

"Hey, what gives?" Shinji growled.

"I'll see _you_ later," he winked, before the elevator door shut.

As Shinji rubbed Asuka's behind irritably, Ritsuko noted his discomfort. "Welcome to being a girl," she said dryly. "Get used to _sekkuhara*_. It's a natural part of life as a woman, especially around guys like _that_," she added, referring of course to Kaji.

"Ritsuko, how long do I have to stay like this?" Shinji stammered, fighting back tears.

"Walk with me," she said.

In NERV's cafeteria, Shinji wolfed down an enormous tray of sushi. The hunger he was feeling had temporarily overridden all of his fears, doubts, and trepidations.

"Slow down," Ritsuko chuckled. "It's not good for your digestion to eat so quickly."

"S-sorry," Shinji apologized.

"Don't worry. I'm sure this has been difficult for you."

Ritsuko seemed to be observing each and every action he made with scientific acumen. It made him feel like a lab rat being tested. Embarrassed, he began to eat slowly, delicately bringing the sushi rolls up to his mouth and chewing as daintily as he could and being careful not to open his mouth.

"Really, it could have been worse," Dr. Akagi said. "To be honest, this whole thing has everyone at NERV stumped. Even the EVAs have been affected."

"How so?" Shinji managed between bites.

"Well, for starters, Unit 01 has ceased to respond to all of our tests. The MAGI can't get any readings from it at all."

"And Asuka's EVA?"

"That's the weirdest part of all," Ritsuko noted. "Its wave spectrum patterns have begun to change."

"What do you mean?" Shinji asked, intrigued.

"Well as you know, each EVA has a unique energy signature which is due in part to the synchronization of the assigned pilot to the EVA. Generally speaking, once this energy signature has been defined, it is extremely difficult to erase. Think of it like memories. Once you make them, they are extremely hard to forget. Well, from what we've been able to gather, that energy pattern is changing, almost as though the EVA's memories are being overwritten by something else."

"Can't you just… you know… pull the plug?" the third child wondered aloud. "Like… reboot it?"

"That could do more harm than good," Ritsuko interjected. "It could cause the EVA to enter a state similar to a coma."

Shinji nodded, and knew not to doubt the scientific scholarship of one of the most distinguished minds in the field of experimental science on the entire planet. "What can we do?"

"Hope," Ritsuko replied, making Shinji look up from his plate. Intangible and irrational emotions like hope were human qualities that Ritsuko typically held quite a degree of disdain for. The scientist noted Shinji's surprise. "You've switched bodies with Asuka, Shinji," she said. "I think it's pretty safe to say we're well beyond the realm of scientific probability."

"Ritsuko, Misato said that all of this happened because of two A.T. fields exploding against each other. Do you share that opinion?"

"Officially, yes," Ritsuko nodded gravely.

"And unofficially?"

"NERV has made incredible headway in doing battle with the angel invaders and in finding solutions to ensure the survival of mankind, but the thing we know the least about, the great enigma we've not been able to solve, is the mystery behind the EVAs themselves. What exactly is it that makes the EVAs unique and not just big, hulking, billion-dollar investments of steel and iron? What is the elusive ghost in the machine that causes the EVAs to synch with only to certain individuals and completely reject others? Can we truly chalk it all up to impossibly complex systems of computer code, or is it something far more abstruse and incomprehensible?"

"It sounds like you're talking about the soul," Shinji observed.

"Just a word," Ritsuko retorted, "Simple terminology to account for something we can't explain."

"So you think the EVAs might have had something to do with this?"

"Hard to say. But rest assured, Shinji," she rested her hands on his own, "we're doing everything we can to find out what happened."

This was, for whatever reason, extremely reassuring to Shinji, and he felt extremely optimistic, until a moment later of course when Ritsuko shattered his mood.

"Well don't keep your father waiting. He's concerned about your health."

"I doubt that very much," Shinji said bleakly.

Suddenly, there was a periodic beeping noise from Ritsuko's pager. She looked at it, then nodded resolutely and stood up. "Well, I'll leave you to it. I've got to go. Apparently, you just woke up, and you're not too happy about it either."

She winked, spun on her heel, and was gone.

*_Sekkuhara_ – the transliteration of the English words "sexual harassment" in Japanese.


	4. Chapter 4

Shinji was sweating buckets as he waited outside his father's office, pondering just how bad his father's sermon would be. Although, he couldn't imagine which would be worse: facing Gendo's accusatory stare and callous indifference or dealing with the onslaught of the second child who was no doubt, at this very moment, planning to give him the thrashing of his lifetime?

He wanted to cry. _Why do things like this always happen to me?_ He just wanted to be a normal boy. He wanted to be left alone to his own devices. Do his homework. Watch television. Play an occasional video game. Chasing after angels with a progknife and a lascannon for a living was not at all how he'd imagined he'd spend the last few good years of his adolescence. And definitely not swapping bodies with the girl who terrified him on a regular basis.

Suddenly the door to his father's office hissed open, and he found himself staring up at the imposing figure of Deputy Commander Kozo Fuyutsuki. Gendo's confidant reddened from ear to ear as he looked down at Shinji, obviously aware of the situation, and he cleared his throat. "Well, we'll finish this later," he said to Gendo over his shoulder. "UNESCO's breathing down my neck and I've got a stack of paperwork a mile high." He uttered an awkward, _Hello Shinji_, before speedily making an exit.

The third child mustered what little confidence he knew he had and walked forward, ready to face the music. Gendo sat behind a broad, black, steel desk, his hands folded as usual and cradling his chin. His glasses gleamed as he regarded his son.

"You wanted to see me?" Shinji mumbled, embarrassed at the new pitch of his own voice.

Gendo adjusted his spectacles with his middle finger. "Come closer."

Shinji obeyed. Now he was standing several feet away from his father. A slight chill swept across the room, and goose bumps rose on his skin.

"Turn around," Gendo instructed.

"What?"

"Do as you're told," his father commanded austerely.

Confused, Shinji made a 360 degree turn before putting his hands on his hips and growling, "What's the big deal?"

"Everything looks normal," Gendo noted to himself.

"_Normal?_" Shinji nearly shrieked. "How could you call this normal? I'm stuck in Asuka's body!"

"Calm down," Gendo assured him. "More importantly, do you feel alright?"

Shinji stared blankly at his father who returned the same blank stare. "What?"

"Have you observed anything out of the ordinary? Any migraines? Fatigue? Unusual sensations?"

"No," Shinji lied, still not sure if the vision he'd had earlier was only a figment of his over-active imagination.

"Good," Gendo finished. "Then you're dismissed."

Shinji stood fast, slightly agitated at his father's brusqueness. Gendo returned to sifting through the files on his desk.

"Father!" Shinji cried. "How long do I have to stay like this? You can change me back, right?"

Gendo ignored Shinji deliberately.

"_Scheisse!_" the third child snarled. "Fine, be like that." He turned and left without another word.

"Asuka, try to be calm," Misato was saying as four NERV MPs slowly edged around the table where Asuka, inhabiting Shinji's body, was holding an I.V. unit like a weapon.

"_CALM?!_" the second child roared. "How the hell can I stay calm?! I look like Shinji!"

Ritsuko entered the room and Asuka's eyes darted to the door frantically.

"This is _your _fault, isn't it!" she wailed.

"If you stop being so immature and shouting maybe someone will explain it to you," the scientist offered.

"Somebody better explain this to me!" the German girl shot back, pulling up her hospital gown and exposing Shinji's genitals to everyone in the room. Misato blushed profusely and cast her eyes to the floor, but Ritsuko's neutral countenance was undeterred.

"You and Shinji have temporarily switched bodies," the woman soothed. "We're doing everything we can to sort it out."

"That pathetic little dweeb is walking around in _my_ body?!" the German yelled furiously. "Who knows what that stupid pervert might do?"

"I assure you, Asuka, he's just as terrified as you are, and he'll need your support to get through this. We all know how emotionally fragile he is."

"_Sag mal bist du derb?*_" Shinji's body's keeper quipped. "He's a _boy_!"

"Well, currently so are you," Misato said under her breath, inciting a nervous chuckle from the NERV MPs.

"Oh, _you're _loving this, aren't you, pervert? You've always wanted a good long look at little Shinji's _thing_, why don't you come cop a feel while you're at it?"

"That's a bit out of line, don't you think?" Kaji said leaning against the door frame.

"I thought he might help make this easier," Ritsuko nodded at Misato.

"K…Kaji!" Asuka blurted. She covered herself quickly and hid behind the hospital bed. "Don't look at me like this!"

"Come out from there," Kaji laughed. "You're being ridiculous and unladylike. The sooner you cooperate with these goons the sooner you'll be back to your sexy self."

"Don't overdo it," Ritsuko warned quietly.

Kaji shrugged and walked across the room, past the NERV MPs, motioning for them to back off. He sat on the bed and swung his legs over, placed his hands on his knees, and looked down at Shinji's cowering figure.

"Don't look!" Asuka begged.

"Personally I'd have thought you'd relish the chance to take Shinji for a test drive. You're always trying to one-up him; now's your chance to figure out why he's such a good EVA pilot."

Asuka started to cry. "_Anta baka_," she sniffled into her arm. "Why did this have to happen? What if he… how can I…"

Kaji reached down and wrapped his left arm around Asuka's shoulders, and brought her chin up with his right hand. Their eyes met. "Things will work out. But I think first you should talk to Shinji. You're a lot stronger than he is, and he's got a lot on his plate right now. Of all possible times, he needs you now the most."

"Where is he?"

"Right now, I'd imagine he's probably getting chewed out by his old man. Either that or he's standing outside the girl's bathroom about to wet himself, much too terrified to urinate as a female."

"Shit!" Asuka gritted her teeth. "I've got to go find him!"

The second child leapt up and sprinted for the door, the MPs in tow. Ritsuko sighed and Misato began to laugh.

"You're an asshole, Kaj," she snorted.

"Ritsu-chan," Kaji said standing up. "You owe me. I'll be seeing you later."

Misato shot an icy glare at her colleague. Ritsuko shrugged casually. "You should go bring Shinji and Asuka back to the apartment now. Those kids will have a lot to talk about."

"Fine," she grimaced. She dared a glance at Kaji, who flashed the "V" sign over his shoulder.

"Ta," he mused playfully.

"Damn it," Major Katsuragi fumed.

---

*German -- "What are you, dense?"


	5. Chapter 5

Shinji Ikari was nervous as he headed back down the corridor. The nauseous feeling was creeping back into his stomach. The meeting with his father had been auspiciously brief, but predictably unnerving. His father had seemed minimally interested in the current physical state of his son, and more in his emotional status, no doubt trying to discern whether further synch ratio testing or EVA drills would have to be postponed. Although most times he would have just accepted his father's indifference and moved on, this time was exceptional. Gendo's cold, disinterested demeanor had really gotten under his skin, and that combined with the confusion and frustration he was feeling coping with being stuck in Asuka's body was starting to give him a migraine headache.

The sound of Shinji's angry footfalls echoed resentfully throughout the corridor. The bleak uniformity of the NERV building wasn't particularly comforting. It, like his mind, was a serpentine labyrinth of meandering corridors that lead nowhere. Beneath it all, three computers, the MAGI, dictated every action of every employee in the building. Metaphorically speaking, to Shinji those three computers were Misato, Ritsuko, and his father Gendo. He lived his life by their rules and regulations, and had little to show for it but a misspent youth and loneliness.

Loneliness was not a new feeling to the third child. It had been his only constant companion over the long years during which he struggled with an absentee father and a dead mother. In that respect, he did in fact have something in common with the fiery red head second child. Yet neither had fully come to terms with the realities of their childhoods, and subsequently, that bottled-up hurt inside them strained their communication. Shinji didn't have to possess Asuka's body to know she was ultra-competitive, and that never bothered him. What did aggravate him was the fact that Asuka believed her troubles were more numerous and superior than his own. She even had to take first place at suffering.

Still, no one could say Shinji hadn't attempted to befriend the ireful German. That's all he really ever desired anyway. Friendship. People who genuinely listened to him when he spoke. But true enough, it was difficult to hear someone's pleas for attention over the deafening roar of the MAGI and the EVAs. The EVAs had become as much a part of their pilots' lives as any living person. Inextricably, their fates were bound to the machines and there was nothing they could do about it. Did man make his own destiny, or was it already laid out for him? Shinji was pondering this question when he suddenly felt a tightness in his lower abdomen, and he realized that Asuka's body had to urinate. Badly.

The fear came back again. Going to the bathroom as a girl was something that hadn't even crossed his mind since the swap had occurred, and now the thought terrified him. He didn't dare even risk a glance at Asuka's secret treasures, even though he was definitely aware something downstairs he'd grown quite accustomed to having was missing in action. He respected—and feared—Asuka too much to do anything generally inappropriate, and he guessed she wouldn't look at his private parts either, probably out of disgust for the male gender. But he _had_ to go to the bathroom, and it was something all humans did. He knew even the brilliant minds of NERV wouldn't be able to revert him to his old self before he had to seek out a bowl of porcelain.

Standing outside the girls' restroom, his ears flushed with blood and he felt his heart thundering against his chest as if it would burst right out through his body. He started to recite his usual mantra again and again: _I musn't run away, I musn't run away_. He started tapping his foot impatiently up and down, trying to convince himself that it was perfectly normal and that Asuka would rather him just relieve her bladder than publically soil her clothing. But then he remembered the dividing line she'd set up in Misato's apartment and how insistent she was on maintaining her personal space. His eyes began to well up with tears when a soft voice derailed his train of thought.

"Shinji?"

The third child whirled around to find lieutenant Maya Ibuki staring at him, blushing profusely.

"Oh, um, hi," Shinji replied sheepishly.

"Everything ok?" the girl asked.

Shinji started trembling, and crossed his thighs in desperation.

"Yup. Fine. Everything's absolutely wonderful."

Maya glanced from Shinji to the bathroom door and back to Shinji. Then suddenly, she stifled a giggle.

"Too embarrassed to pee, huh?" she chuckled.

Shinji turned a color analogous to a prize-winning beet. "Y…yeah," he admitted.

"Well you'll have to do this eventually," Maya nodded. "Here, I'll go in with you."

Shinji followed the lieutenant obediently into the women's restroom. He was immediately struck by how clean everything was and well lit, not at all like the guys' toilets where the nooks and crannies were yellow and odorous from NERV employees you wouldn't exactly call '_Hawkeye_'. There was a smell in the air that reminded him of lilacs. It was comforting.

"Pick a stall, go in, and I'll be right here in case you have any problems."

Too mortified to speak, Shinji selected the stall in the middle, entered, and shut the door behind him. His heart was pounding in his ears.

"Be glad you're not wearing anything complicated," Maya offered, "like a lace up dress or something."

"Y..yeah," Shinji blurted. He squeezed his eyes shut, then pulled his shorts and panties down in one swift and uncoordinated motion. He fell back on the toilet seat, eyes still closed, knees wobbly, his hands clasped together between his knees. _Just do it_, he argued with himself in his mind. _It's just peeing, for God's sake. Get a grip, Shinji._ With a brief nod and a little sigh, Shinji arched his back and let go. He groaned as the warm liquid exited his body and cascaded into the toilet bowl beneath him. When he'd finished, he slumped back against the toilet seat. _That felt so good_, he thought to himself.

"Everything alright in there?" Maya called over the stall.

"Y-y-yeah, fine," the third child stammered.

"Don't forget to wipe yourself or you'll regret it later when you're doing laundry," the lieutenant added.

_Wipe yourself_. A self-proclaimed expert at urinals but an intern at the art of peeing sitting down, it hadn't even occurred to Shinji he'd have to clean up after himself every time he peed, even if it was only 'number one'*. He pulled a few sheets of toilet paper out of the dispenser before he realized exactly what wiping as a girl would most likely entail.

"I can't do it," he said suddenly, aloud.

"Can't do what?"

"I… you know… _wipe_. I can't touch Asuka _there_! It's just… it's… it's not right!"

"Shinji, do you realize when Asuka has to pee she's going to have to hold your penis, right?"

Shinji coughed loudly, turning dark red as he realized Maya was right. It made him sick, the very thought of Asuka 'manhandling' his member, probably being extremely violent in its handling too given her dislike of him. He wanted a hole to open up in the ground and swallow him whole.

"I've got to find her before that happens!" Shinji decided, also a bit conscious his size might not meet her expectations of manhood. Determined, Shinji stuck his hand between his thighs and gently pressed the tissue against Asuka's genitals. His entire body jolted with a sensation of entirely different sort, and he gasped. _I musn't run away, I musn't run away…_

It took several minutes before Shinji gathered the gusto to finish the deed, but he managed with a few quick flicks of his wrist, and he stood up, rocking a bit on his feet for a moment before bending down and grasping each side of the panties with his thumb and forefinger and pulling them up his body. He repeated the motion with the shorts before flushing the toilet and opening the stall door to find Maya waiting patiently, arms folded across her chest.

"Everything go alright?"

"Yeah."

"Wasn't so bad was it?"

"No. Where's Asuka?"

"That I'm not sure about. But I've got to go file these reports. Do you think you'll feel up to some synch ratio tests tomorrow?"

"Sure, yeah," Shinji said distractedly. He trotted toward the door of the ladies' room, and opened it. And blinked.

It was like staring at a mirror. In front of Shinji Ikari _was_ Shinji Ikari, wearing only a hospital gown. Several NERV MPs were running down the corridor, panting and out-of-breath. It took a good solid few moments before the reality of the situation sunk in. Maya appeared behind him.

"Oh, there you are, Asuka," the girl smiled.

The second child looked from Shinji to Maya to the bathroom door, then back again. Asuka's face melted from shock to pure, unbridled rage in the span of a nanosecond. "_YOU PERVERT!_" she shrieked, before slapping him so hard across the face he stumbled back against the wall and knocked his head. He extended his arms helplessly before blackness descended upon him.

---

Shinji's eyelids fluttered. The room was bathed in golden light like a mid-summer's evening. The warm quilt that was pulled up to his neck felt wonderful against his skin. He smiled broadly, stretching his arms and legs, yawning. He suddenly became aware of a dull throbbing in the back of his head, which was vaguely disconcerting, and he rubbed the softness there for a moment before his eyes widened at finding his hair was a lot longer than he'd remembered it. He pulled a few strands with his fingertips. They were fiery orange.

_No way…_

Suddenly the door to the room slid open, and the blue-haired, red-eyed Rei Ayanami walked in, then stopped for a moment. Shinji thought her expression could have passed for surprise.

"Oh, you're up," the girl said monosyllabically.

"Where am I?" Shinji asked.

"Your room. Misato's apartment."

Shinji looked around him. There were posters of attractive men all over the walls, most of them comfortably in their mid-twenties, possibly early thirties. There were magazines, mangas, half-eaten bags of chips, miscellaneous articles of clothing, and beer cans strewn about the room. "This isn't my room," he concluded.

"Well, it's technically Asuka's," Rei replied. "But given your situation…"

It all flooded back to him in the blink of an eye. The battle with the angel. The explosion of the A.T. fields. Waking up at NERV in Asuka's body. Talking to Ritsuko in the cafeteria. The meeting with his father. He started feeling sick again.

"I'll make you some tea," Rei said, starting to turn and walk away.

"No, Rei, wait!"

The first child turned. "Yes?"

"Don't… don't go yet…"

Rei stared at him incredulously. "Are you sure you're feeling ok?"

Shinji nodded. "Yeah, yeah. My head hurts a little. Did I hit my head on something?"

"A wall to be precise," Rei told him. "And that mark on your cheek is from where you—where Asuka hit you."

Shinji recalled the slap that had sent him reeling, and he rubbed his left cheek. It felt warm to the touch. "Rei, where is Asuka?"

"With Misato. They'll both be back within the hour."

Shinji nodded. There was an awkward silence.

"I'll go make tea," Rei concluded.

"Rei, um…"

"Yes?"

"You don't think this whole mix-up is going to last a while do you? Like, they'll probably have it figured out tomorrow, right?"

It was difficult to tell if Rei registered the question or not, but at length she replied, "Get some rest. They'll be running extensive synch tests on you tomorrow."

And with that she was gone. Shinji didn't dare explore Asuka's room anymore than he already had. In fact, he knew there would be hell to pay for having lain in her bed. He drew the blankets aside, then quickly pulled them back over himself again, and screamed.

Rei entered once more. "What's wrong?"

"Where are my clothes?"

"Oh," the first child replied matter-of-factly. "Misato went shopping for you today, but I was supposed to give you these in case you woke up early."

Rei walked over to Asuka's bureau and picked up a plastic bag Shinji hadn't noticed before. She rounded the bedside and handed them to Shinji who held the blanket about himself defensively. He looked through the bag. There was a black tank top, size small, a pair of red and white striped boy short panties, and a pair of pajamas with penguins on them.

"They're Misato's," Rei noted, "but they'll do until they bring you something else."

Shinji stared at Rei for a minute. "What?" she cut the silence.

"Well, um, do you mind giving me some privacy?"

The first child nodded acquiescingly. "I'll be outside."

Once Rei had disappeared, Shinji rolled over in bed and groaned. _This sucks_, he thought. _I just want to die_. And at that moment, he had his second vision of the day.

---

*Idiom referring to urination, where 'number two' refers to excretion.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's note**: Settle in for a long, meaty psychof*ck of a chapter...

---

The drive home from the mall where Misato had dragged Asuka was excruciating. Initially, after the violent encounter between the two EVA pilots, Misato had thought a little time away from each other would help ease the frustrations both were feeling. Katsuragi knew both of the kids were emotionally fragile, and the next few days would be devastating. She was still particularly irritated with Ritsuko for having scheduled a full day of synch tests the very next day, although she reasoned it was direct orders from Gendo Ikari who was no doubt intent on showing no weaknesses when SELEE decided to launch an inquest into the results of the last battle with the angel. She'd tried bribing Asuka with food, even clothing, to which the irascible German had replied furiously, '_It's not like I can wear any nice clothes in this body, can I?_' But she'd needed to know Asuka's measurements while shopping for clothing for him to wear until NERV found a way to change him back. Secretly, she relished the opportunity to dress Shinji in girls' clothing even if he currently inhabited the body of a female.

As her car careened dangerously around the mountain road, Misato spared a glance at Asuka, who was leaning her head against the window, a look of disgust and confusion upon her face. Misato searched for the right words to comfort her, but who really ever knew what to say to the second child to make her feel better?

"You think you'll be up to running synch ratio tests tomorrow?" Misato said at length. "I can always just tell them you're not up to it."

Asuka grunted, but didn't reply. She seemed absorbed in her own little world as usual.

"I think it's totally unreasonable that you should have to do synch tests in your current condition. NERV really has no idea when to quit."

"Is Shinji going?" Asuka muttered.

It was strange hearing the question from Shinji's vocal chords. "Yes," Misato replied.

"Then _of course_ I'm going, and I'll still kick his ass, even in this lousy body!"

There was more silence.

"You should probably apologize to him when we get back to the apartment," Major Katsuragi suggested.

"What for?" Asuka said, blushing slightly.

"For knocking him out cold, obviously," Misato shot back. "Hell of a thing to do to your own body."

"I didn't mean to," Asuka blurted. "I… I don't know what I was thinking."

"Well don't tell me that," the other said. "Tell him."

"Like he cares," Asuka rambled. "Right now he's probably having the time of his life with my body. Probably flirting with everybody he sees or sneaking a peak at _my_ naked body. I swear, as soon as we get back there I'm gonna beat him senseless!"

"Actually, that's hardly the case," Misato said. "He's been terrified all day long. Poor Shinji, he has it hard enough as it is without having to deal with being _you_."

Those words struck Asuka like a blast from a lascannon. "Just what's that supposed to mean?" she quipped.

"For someone so smart, Asuka, sometimes you can be pretty darn oblivious," retorted Misato, speeding the car around a sharp bend and narrowly missing the van in the other lane. "Shinji's done nothing but try to make you happy, and you just spit it all back in his face."

"_What on earth_ are you talking about?" the second child groaned. "Shinji's a stupid, oversensitive moron that only cares about himself and what other people think about him. What a damn attention whore!"

"Well you're right about one thing," Misato agreed, "he cares a lot what _you_ think of him."

"No he doesn't! All he cares about is doing his homework, getting his father's approval or whatever, and that oh-so-special Wonder Girl of his! He's so… so… so _stupid!_ How could you say he cares what I think about him? He won't even talk to me! He won't even touch—"

Suddenly, Asuka cut herself short and gasped, as if she'd just divulged an enormous secret, and Misato nearly crashed the car. The second child put her face in her hands and began to sob. Misato pulled the car over to the side of the road. She opened the glove compartment and pulled out a wad of napkins she'd most likely grabbed from a fast-food napkin dispenser, and handed them to Asuka, who brushed her hand away irritably, her shoulders hunched, still convulsing with sobbing.

"Asuka…" Misato said quietly in a motherly tone. "You really do care about him a lot, don't you?"

"A…anta baka," Asuka mumbled between sniffles.

Misato waited until the cascading tears let up slightly. "Why haven't you told him any of this?"

"It's not what you think," the second child grumbled. "I… I don't even know what it is… You and Kaji…"

Misato wrapped her arm around Asuka's shoulders, and tried as hard as she could to remind herself this was in fact Asuka and not Shinji. She could certainly understand Asuka's frustrations, even the resentment. Despite all of Shinji's misdeeds and emotional immaturity, one could not help but care about him. Misato had nearly convinced herself that her affection for Shinji was maternal in nature—she herself had suffered the loss of her parents, and she had resolved never to let Shinji, who shared that unique history with her, become self-destructive like she'd become. But it was more than that, she knew, and with each passing day it had become increasingly difficult to lie to herself. Shinji, deep down, had a beautiful soul, and cared deeply for everyone in his life, but no one had ever taught him how to show it. Consequently, his few attempts at making social progress had been thwarted by inexperience, and he'd turtled up and shut everyone out. Just like Asuka. Was Asuka able to see that deeply into Shinji's heart, even at fourteen?

"You just want to be loved," Misato whispered.

"Baka…"

"Asuka… you can talk to me…"

"Nobody cares about me," she sniffled, sounding strangely more like Shinji than her usual, resentful and bitter self. "Certainly not Shinji."

"I don't think that's true…"

"It is."

"Have you ever asked him?"

"Of course not. I already know the answer."

"Asuka, even you don't know everything."

Asuka looked up at Misato through Shinji's large, brown, tear-laden eyes. "I do, trust me. I'm never wrong."

"Never?"

"Never."

"But what if you were this time?"

"Who cares? Shinji's an idiot anyway."

"Then why do you care about him?"

"It's complicated."

"That's life," Misato sighed, leaning back in the car seat. Misato and Asuka spent the next fifteen minutes in silence, watching the golden-pink light of sunset bathe Tokyo in the aftermath of another, difficult day.

"You may not respect me," Misato said after a while of reflection, "But I was a kid once too. I went through all the same shit."

"I doubt it," Asuka grunted, irritability creeping back into her voice.

"It's true. I loved a guy once… a lot. I couldn't eat or sleep or do anything without thinking about him. I was completely in love."

The second child uttered a dry, sarcastic laugh. "Yeah… so what happened?"

"Nothing," sighed Major Katsuragi. "I never had the guts to tell him how I felt. But I still think about him from time to time… wondering where he is now… if he found someone else who loves him as much as I did… if he has a family… if he's happy. I wonder about it a lot, but I'll never really know, will I? I made a choice, Asuka, and I have to live with that choice for the rest of my life. Who I am today could very well have been defined by that moment of weakness… that moment of indecision. Look at me! I'm a disaster. I'm totally unhappy. Don't end up like me, Asuka, just promise me that."

Asuka's hand slowly, cautiously, crept up and rested atop Misato's. "You're not a disaster," she offered, but she couldn't think of anything more reassuring to say.

Misato fought back tears. "It's ok, Asuka, I'm not asking for sympathy. I'm just asking you don't make the same mistake I did. Don't live your life with regrets. Say what you need to say, because life's one, long crap shoot and it's all you can do to make the suffering bearable. Say what you need to say."

Asuka removed her hand from Misato's and reclined in the seat. The last rays of light were disappearing from the valley. "I'll be fine," she said after a moment. "It's not like you think. I don't _like_ Shinji… I… he's like… he's like the brother I never had maybe, I don't know. He's too dorky and immature for someone like me, anyway."

Steering the car back onto the road, the two drove the rest of the way back to the apartment in silence, both lost in their own thoughts. It was eight o'clock in the evening when they finally reached their destination, and the light in Asuka's room was on. The second child stared up through the windshield curiously.

"Is Rei here?"

"She probably went home by now," Misato said, removing the key from the ignition. The engine sputtered and died. "Shinji's resting in your room."

"_My room_? What the hell for?!" Asuka bellowed.

"Ritsuko thought from a psychological standpoint it would be less confusing if he… um… got used to having girly things around."

"God damn it!" Asuka groaned, marching up the front path.

"Asuka wait!" Misato called after her.

"What?!" the second child retorted angrily. Misato drew back in surprise, still not used to seeing Shinji Ikari's body acting so cross and rebellious.

"Be gentle," she cautioned. "Shinji's really trying to adjust."

"I'll give that super dork something to adjust to," came the bitter reply.

---

Shinji Ikari sat in Asuka's bad, reading one of her graphic novels. He'd been shocked to find out the second child had an extensive collection of romance mangas; he'd had her pegged for the action genre. Nonetheless, the illustrations were quite good, he decided, and the storyline made him feel upbeat and hopeful. In fact, he'd gotten so absorbed in the mangas that he'd totally forgotten about the tea Rei had brewed for him which had turned a murky brown in the small mug sitting on the night stand. He hadn't told her about the vision he'd had either; it had been confusing, and he still wasn't sure if it had been the stress of the day causing his overactive imagination to hallucinate.

He heard the door to the apartment open, and there was a scuffle, the sound of heavy, rapid footfalls, then suddenly the sliding door to Asuka's room flew open. Shinji stared in awe, shocked at seeing himself for the second time that day. Asuka, in Shinji's body, glowered at Shinji who sat upon her bed, dressed in a black tank top and cut off jeans. Misato's attire. She opened her mouth instinctively, a long string of profanities and choice oaths forming in her mind, but nothing came out. The two exchanged glances, and it was Shinji who finally broke the awkward silence.

"Um, I hoped you wouldn't mind me reading your graphic novels," he stammered. "I really didn't have anything else to do."

Asuka blanched at hearing her own vocal chords produce such a lame apology. "Whatever," she said quickly, embarrassed on her body's behalf. "But Shinji, if you ever touch my body again, I'll kill you myself."

Shinji nodded, closing the book. "I'm sorry."

"Don't… stop that!"

"Stop what?"

"Apologizing!"

"Oh. S-sorry…"

"God damn it, Shinji!"

Misato entered the room and smiled when she saw Shinji awake and dressed in her own garments. She giggled. "Those look good on you, Shinji," she cooed.

"You mean they look good on _me_," the second child interjected.

"Have you two eaten? I could cook something," Shinji offered.

Asuka started to say something, but Misato jabbed her in the ribs. "We're famished. Get to it Shinji."

Shinji's eyes glowed. He nearly leapt out of bed, grabbed the mug of cold tea, and hurried out and into the kitchen. Misato looked at Asuka with a grin. "Still think he doesn't care about you?"

"Just shut up," the girl muttered.

Asuka sat at the living room table, head cocked sideways resting on her arm, staring at herself cooking in the kitchen. The very fact that Shinji was using her beautiful body for such pedestrian concerns like domestic housework annoyed her. But it bothered her even more that he seemed so ill-at-ease and calm in her body. Like it came to him naturally. Like piloting the EVAs came to him naturally. Her frustrations at not being the best at piloting the EVAs, and at the fact that while she had the attention of virtually every other boy in Japan, she couldn't win his, began to return. She knew she couldn't survive long as Shinji, in his body. It would be too torturous, being inside the body of the boy she so secretly, desperately longed for. It was such a cruel twist of fate, a vile bend in the river of destiny that had thrust them even closer when they'd been drifting apart. Now forgetting the complicated feelings she felt for Shinji, the hate, and the love, would be impossible.

As Shinji prepared dinner, Asuka sunk deeper and deeper into the euphoria of hatred. She felt sick to her stomach. A bitter nausea overwhelmed her as she detested the fact that she cared about the dweeb Shinji, and especially that Misato knew. _She knew_. Vomit crept up into her mouth. The world she had constructed around her was falling apart. She had kept the walls up so long she wasn't even sure she'd recognize what was behind them anymore. She remembered finding her dead mother swinging from the ceiling of that barren medical hospital, and how she'd made a pact with herself never to let love in ever again. If she didn't feel love, she could never again be hurt. She'd spent her entire childhood in libraries and lecture halls, running away from love. And it had caught up to her. She started to wretch.

Shinji placed a steaming bowl of spiced ramen down before Asuka, a broad smile on his face. That genuine smile of caring that Asuka had forgotten how to conjure. "Careful, it's a bit hot," he said.

The cartharsis crept up in her throat, and the floodgate opened. Tears erupting from her eyes, Asuka leapt up from her chair and ran from the living room, slamming the door to her room behind her. Shinji's jaw dropped as he watched flee the room weeping. Misato's expression was the same, pure shock, as she stood in the doorway of her own bedroom.

"Wh… what did I say? What did I do wrong?" Shinji stammered incredulously.

Misato shook her head. "I… I don't know."

Shinji walked to Asuka's door and knocked softly. "Asuka?"

There was no answer but the faint sound of sobbing. Shinji listened for a moment, before looking at Misato, worriedly.

"Misato, did something happen today to Asuka?"

Misato went and sat at the living room table and started eating from Asuka's bowl. "Just let it play out," she said simply. "There's nothing we can do."

Shinji walked to his room silently and closed the door behind him. He looked around his room. He noted how plain and uninteresting it was. He looked at his cassette player and picked it up. Sitting down on his bed, he fit the ear buds of the headset into Asuka's ears, brushing back her hair as he did so. He sat cross-legged, listening to Beethoven's piano sonata number fourteen in C-sharp minor, the _Moonlight Sonata_. The silvery-blue light of the midnight sun spilled over him as he thrust the curtains of the window aside.

Why did Asuka hate him so much, he wondered as the sad, melancholy notes of the sonata crawled into his ears. Was he really that much of a disappointment in her eyes? What was it that he'd done that had been so vulgar in her eyes? He reflected a moment. He figured Asuka'd had a difficult past, especially since she never talked about it. He knew she had a step-mother, and maybe that had something to do with why she didn't get along with Misato very well. What happened to her real mother? He wondered about the vision he'd seen earlier that day about the woman hanged in a medical ward. Where had that vision come from? Why?

There were a lot of things Shinji didn't know about Asuka. Certainly she made it difficult to find out what those things were. Most people thought she was loud and bossy and obnoxious, but deep down Shinji didn't think so. She wanted attention; he knew that much. Her flirting with Kaji and the other boys at school was probably because of feelings of neglect. That was part of growing up. Shinji knew all about neglect. His father neglected him. His childhood friends neglected him. Only his mother hadn't neglected him. His psychologist had told him that his problems with approaching girls stemmed from feelings of betrayal towards his mother. Shinji had always hated those psychologists. Everything was broken down, cold and scientific, just like his father.

And that's what was so unique about Asuka. Until he'd met her, he hadn't wanted to understand girls at all. But he'd taken an interest in her, and he didn't feel guilty about it. He didn't know what it meant, this interest, or even why he felt it, but he didn't want to deny it. In fact, at times he wanted desperately to be her best friend. And the time they'd kissed, and the image of his mother came abruptly into his mind just after he'd started to enjoy Asuka's warmth, he felt like he'd done something right for once in his life. And he'd loved that feeling.

The Moonlight Sonata continued to play. Shinji thought about the sheer coincidence of the recent body swap. Just when he'd felt that he'd lost any hope of ever understanding Asuka, now they'd been thrust together again, although in a vexing and curious way. Shinji had always wished he could get inside Asuka's mind, not her body. In truth, he didn't know much about the second child, but taking control of her body was far from an ideal way of getting to know her better. He felt humiliated and ashamed. He felt like he was violating Asuka's trust. He just wished things would go back to normal.

But the second vision he'd had haunted him, and he knew things wouldn't be the same. They couldn't be, now that he knew something about her, a terrible darkness that was eating away at her from the inside, a darkness that would one day consume her. It was a similar darkness to the darkness he'd sometimes imagined he'd seen in Misato. And in Kaji. And especially in his father. That darkness scared him to the marrow of his bones, and he wanted to be as far away from it as possible. Even though he'd sensed that darkness in Asuka, he'd vehemently ignored it. He didn't care if he'd unearth something terrifying, as long as she wouldn't ever leave his side. He needed a strong, faithful companion, someone with patience and understanding that would take the time it took to unravel the protective coils of Shinji's heart. Could Asuka be that person? Would she be?

Shinji didn't like shouldering others with his burdens. He knew it wasn't their responsibility to bear, and he didn't want to look weak. Especially in the eyes of his father, from whom he sought approval and respect. He was growing up, and though he hadn't reached maturity, he was no longer a child. He wanted to prove that to everyone, to reclaim his dignity, but he didn't know how. It didn't come naturally to him, unlike piloting the EVAs. At least he was good at something. He reasoned if he really applied himself to most things, he could achieve great things, but when it came to understanding others, it was a fool's errand. Trying to become more social when you've been out of practice for years isn't easy, he thought.

Misato leaned against the door to Shinji's room, listening, her chest heaving against the doorway. She could hear her heart beating in her head. She rocked on her heels a bit, burped, then steadied herself and placed her fingers upon the door for balance. Her hot breath reeked of cheap beer. She felt a tickling sensation in her lower abdomen. She was horny. She thought about Asuka in Shinji's body, sulking in her room, and of Shinji, probably stretched out on his bed listening to classical music. Oh, what a paradox! She swayed and her cheeks reddened as dirty and perverted thoughts crept like imps into the caverns of her mind. It had been a while since she'd done it with another woman, and the idea of seducing Shinji in Asuka's body was terrifyingly exhilarating and very real. She stifled a husky giggle, then turned and placed her back to the doorway. Her right hand found its way betwixt her thighs, but then she jerked to a stop. Logic and reason arrested her brain. These were kids. Scared, immature kids. How disgustingly selfish of her it was to be thinking about taking advantage of them in their fragile state of mind—and body. She bit her finger as her eyes glazed over with the fog of a coming rain. _You're disgusting_, she told herself. _You're nothing but a selfish whore. How could you make me this way? I hate __**you**__!_ Misato ran from the room and shut herself in her room, and let her tears put her to sleep.

---

The next morning, all three of them were bleary-eyed and fatigued. Doubtless, none of them had slept more than a few hours. They were all jittery. Woken up at the crack of dawn by Rei Ayanami, dispatched by a wizened Ritsuko who had anticipated the trio would oversleep, the three of them were irritable and testy. Rei regarded them with staid curiosity, but diligently hurried them through a dull breakfast during which no conversation was made. They all packed into the company car that had been dispatched, the driver an unpleasantly regular-faced man that anyone could easily forget at the wheel. Misato mumbled something about Ritsuko that Shinji didn't quite hear but got the gist of, and the rest of the journey was made in agonizing silence, except for a moment when Rei Ayanami made an impromptu mention of a favorable looking sky and what a good day it was for synch ratio testing.

When the three of them had to get changed into their plug suits, Asuka stared Shinji down, and he shrugged helplessly.

"Shinji," she flared, "If you do anything funny to me while you're in there…"

"You'll kill me, right, got it," Shinji nodded impatiently.

"I'll kill you," she repeated for effect.

"Well the same goes for you then!" Shinji called before disappearing.

Suddenly Asuka flushed a deep shade of red as she realized she'd have to deal with Shinji's penis for the second time since the tragic turn of events took place. She spouted off a series of German obscenities, then disappeared into the stall. She stripped off Shinji's clothes, reached quickly for his plug suit, and, carefully avoiding _that_ area, pulled the material up over Shinji's body. She pressed the air compressor valve, and the fabric clung to her body. She yelped as she felt the soft material conformed to Shinji's manhood.

Shinji walked out of the stall and tossed Asuka's hair over her shoulders. He shook his head, letting it settle, and looked up to face Ritsuko with her jaw down to the floor.

"What?" he said. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"What you just did. That was funny. It was very _Asuka_."

Shinji reddened. "Oh… I'm sorry then."

Rei looked at Shinji's stall. "Where is miss Sohryu?"

Ritsuko called over. "Asuka, everything okay in there?"

"I'm not coming out!" she shrieked, Shinji's voice shriller than he himself had ever heard it.

"What, what's wrong?" Ritsuko shouted back?

"What did you do to me?" Shinji cried.

"Wait here," Ritsuko told them, striding hurriedly over to the stall. She peeked in the curtain and Asuka screamed, curling up against the rear wall of the cubicle.

"What? What's wrong?" the doctor demanded.

Asuka flushed uncharted shades of crimson. She shuffled slightly in her position, rotated her hips and pointed. "It got big," she reported.


	7. Chapter 7

The sound of Ritsuko's laughter was so raucous that Shinji dashed over to the cubicle, Rei in tow, and drew the curtain aside in a panic. Asuka shrieked, covering herself, but the scream that left Shinji's mouth was ear-splitting. He ran into the dressing chamber, spun around, and spread his legs and arms wide apart.

"Don't look!" he screamed shrilly.

"You got it," Ritsuko teased, drawing the curtain closed. Before it shut, Shinji could see Rei's complexion red with embarrassment.

Shinji spun around. "How could you do that to me?!" he shouted.

"It's not like I wanted to give you a stiffy!" Asuka roared back. "It just _happened_! I don't know how! How do you make this go away?"

Shinji looked at the tent in the fabric of his old plug suit, then back to Asuka, horrified. "Okay, think about something you hate. Like Rei or something. Or me. Close your eyes and think about me!"

Asuka's cheeks burned. "Well why in the hell would I want to do that! Like that would really work!"

"Well pick anything! A bad memory! A hospital."

The last words Shinji spoke chilled Asuka to the bone, sending chills down her spine. Why had he said hospital? Was it just coincidence, or did Shinji somehow know about what had happened with her mother? She started to panic, wondering what that would mean. She'd have to know if he knew, but how could she find out without being obtrusive about it in the case that he didn't?

"It looks like it's working!" Shinji exclaimed hopefully.

"Shut up you _idiot!_" Asuka boomed. "Get out of here! I don't want to see your stupid face!"

Shinji looked as if she'd given him another fist to the face. "What?"

"Get out!" Asuka repeated, her voice breaking.

"But… it's not my face you're even looking at!" the third child stammered.

"_Get out!_" the German hissed, her eyes consumed with hatred. Shinji abandoned his inquiry, and left the changing room.

"She's really pissed," he said. "It must have been something I said."

"Miss Sohryu is not agreeable in the morning," Rei observed cooly.

Ritsuko was still giggling. "Hey, uh, Shinji. What did you tell her to do exactly?"

Shinji shot Ritsuko the trademark Asuka stare. Ritsuko arched an eyebrow. "Forget I asked."

The synch tests were a disaster. Both pilots were testy, and the MAGI barely recorded any readings from the EVAs at all. Shinji felt a slight annoyance at having to sit in Asuka's EVA, and he just wanted the tests to end so he could put as much distance between himself and Asuka as he could. All of her hostility was giving him another headache.

In Shinji's EVA, Asuka's was rambling on and on, each one of her words drenched in syrupy scorn. "I'll teach that Precambrian aardvark never to tell me what to do again! Who the hell does _he_ think _he_ is anyway? Who died and made that loser King of the Castle? What a pervert! Even spying on me when I'm in _his_ body!"

"Ok, take a break, we're cutting this session short early," Misato called irritably over the intercom. There was a hydraulic hiss, and the humming of the EVAs begun to wan.

"Can I go now?" Shinji asked Ritsuko.

"Yeah," she said hopelessly.

Asuka walked past them both and left without a word, slamming the door behind her. Shinji scowled and marched off in the other direction. A moment later Misato emerged.

"Okay what's wrong?" she asked Ritsuko, crossing her arms across her chest.

"Well if I had to venture a guess I would say that the emotional states of the pilots—"

"In English, Rit," Misato cut in brusquely.

"They're angry," she stated flatly.

"Why? At what?"

"I don't have a clue, I thought maybe you would know."

"Well I don't," Misato said with ire. "And we don't have time for this childish shit. Command is gonna have my ass."

"Haven't they already?" Ritsuko retorted angrily.

Misato shot the scientist an icy glare. "You're not a real _saint_ yourself!" She growled something ambiguous, spun on her heel and stomped off.

"What's wrong with everybody today?" Ritsuko grimaced.

---

Gendo leaned forward in his seat. "I want your _real_ impressions. Undigested information. Not this shit," he gestured down to the documents on his desk.

Kaji rubbed the five o'clock shadow on his chin as he sat on the corner of the desk. "Well, the MAGI really don't know anything, so we're safe there. There's no data trail."

"Something I don't know, please."

The NERV informant shifted playfully on the desk. "There's a perspective…popular with SELEE, you might say…that we're secretly manipulating A.T. fields."

Gendo leaned forward, his glasses flashing. "What do they base this on?"

"There's a mole in the upper echelons," Kaji noted. "And they've been doing their own reconnaissance. Their satellite imaging technology budget was just awarded another ten million dollar grant."

"I don't have to remind you how precarious your situation is," Gendo said darkly.

"Yes, yes," replied Kaji dismissively.

"Men in your position have gotten lost in that darkness and never come out," the senior commander of NERV continued.

"I've seen it all," he said confidently.

"Yes, I'm sure," Gendo grunted. "But a man with no apparent desires is a man who can't be trusted."

"You can't trust anyone in this business, that's for sure," the other replied distantly.

"So what are you telling them?"

"The usual. Everything is black-ops. It'll take time. Can't confirm or deny."

"I want you tell to them we _are_ experimenting with artificial A.T. fields."

Kaji raised an eyebrow. "Say again?"

"Tell them we're running programs with A.T. field manipulation."

"Why?"

"Don't ask questions."

"I just don't see how that would be advantageous to you right now," Kaji remarked. "I hear UNESCO and the IAEA are crawling up your ass and turning heads in Geneva. You sure you want SELEE planting weeds in your vegetable garden too?"

"Let me worry about the gardening," Gendo replied. "We here at NERV have a green thumb. You just do your part."

"And when shit hits the fan, who's your fall guy?"

Gendo reclined back in his chair and folded his hands. "Do your job right."

Kaji walked out of Gendo's office, turning things over in his mind. Was Gendo serious about an A.T. field manipulation program? If so, how did he not know? He knew almost everything that happened within NERV's twisted corridors. Misato hadn't told him any secrets, even after he'd gotten her drunk and slept with her, so clearly even she didn't know. This was top shelf stuff. And he'd have to find out just what skeletons were hidden in NERV's closets.

And speak of the devil, there was Misato now marching towards him with a furious look on his face. She accosted him, "What are _you_ doing here?"

"Checking up on Gendo's little A.T. field experiment," he said airily, then strode off, whistling the theme to the _Twilight Zone_.

"What are you talking about? A.T. field experiments? Hey come back here!"

But her words were wasted, and she scowled and walked to Gendo's office.

"What's going on here?" she demanded of the senior Ikari.

Gendo raised his hand. "This display of rude subordination is most displeasing."

"I don't care, and I think what you're putting these kids through is just sick!"

"Fine. You've just been reassigned."

Misato's jaw dropped, then snapped shut. "No, you explain yourself to me! What's the big idea, running all these tests on the kids immediately after such a disaster!"

"I wouldn't say it's been a disaster."

Misato stared at Gendo's lifeless stare. Rei's stare. "What's this I hear about A.T. field experiments?"

The senior commander winced, almost imperceptibly. The whiskers on his chin bristled. "_That_ is none of your concern, Major Katsuragi, and I suggest you forget it unless you plan to tender your resignation."

Misato just glared at Gendo. "You couldn't fire me. My father's name carries too much weight."

"People have forgotten your father's name," Gendo said, giving her an acerbic tongue-lashing. The lines around Misato's eyes tightened and she made a fist.

"You're an asshole," she said bitterly, before leaving the room in tears.

---

Ritsuko walked outside into the sunlight and spotted Asuka in Shinji's body leaning against the rail, the wind whipping his hair. Her lab coat fluttered in the wind.

"Asuka, what's wrong?" she asked?

"Go away," she said, miserably.

"You and Shinji seem pretty angry at each other. What's going on?"

"Would you please just get off my case? God, why is everybody so god damned nosy!"

"Hey, don't cop a tude with me, miss Sohryu," Ritsuko admonished the second child. "All three of you seem ornery and I've a right to know what's going on!"

"_What's going on?_" Asuka cried. "Look at me! I'm Shinji! How would you feel?!"

Ritsuko nodded. "So adjusting is even difficult for the great Asuka Langley Sohryu."

"I didn't say _that_!" the second child spat back.

"It bothers you that he's in your body."

"Of course!"

"And it bothers him that you're in his."

"Probably."

"Then you both feel the same way, so you have something in common."

Asuka shook her head. "I've got nothing in common with that geek."

"You both pilot EVAs," Ritsuko countered.

"What's the point? I sucked at the synch test. Okay. Great. Happy? The great Asuka did badly. And Shinji probably passed with flying colors as usual!"

"Actually you did better than he did, but that's not saying much."

"_Really?_" wondered Asuka. Had she really gotten to him that much?

"Yeah… well also, you did clock* him one in the face yesterday. He could be resentful."

Asuka pouted. "Shinji doesn't feel resentment. He's like Rei; he doesn't feel anything at all."

"If he didn't feel anything he wouldn't be so pissed off at you right now," Ritsuko persisted.

"Stop being such a scientist!" Asuka shot back. The wind howled between them.

"He's really trying to adjust and you keep putting him down and being so hard on him. What's wrong with you?"

_What's wrong with you?_

The words of her father to her mother echoed in her mind. The memory was so discomforting she had to steady herself with the handrail.

"Nothing's wrong with _me_!" Asuka blurted. "It's _you_! And I'll prove it to you! I'll go back in there and do awesome on those stupid synch ratio tests!"

Without another word, Asuka stomped off back toward the building. Ritsuko sighed, exasperatingly.

The second round of synch tests was a dramatic improvement from the first. Asuka and Shinji were almost dead even, the second child taking the third by only a few points. Asuka emerged triumphant to find Shinji talking quietly with Rei, and she pretended not to notice. She put her hands on Shinji's hips and beamed at Ritsuko.

"So how'd I do? Great, right?"

Ritsuko nodded begrudging, eliciting a bubbly and odd-sounding giggle from Shinji's vocals. This caused Shinji to turn his head in wonder at the sound he'd just heard. Asuka looked from Shinji to Ritsuko sheepishly.

"What?"

Shinji shook his head and concluded his conversation with Rei, who walked off in the opposite direction. She gloated as Shinji approached. "Well that's certainly a new record lately," Asuka bragged once the third child was safely within earshot.

"Congratulations, Asuka," Shinji said. "You really got things together."

"Damn right I did," the German beamed. She basked Shinji in the annihilating glow of her self-righteousness. "Did you expect anything less from the most brilliant of the EVA pilots?"

"You did have us worried there for a bit," he remarked matter-of-factly.

"Worried?" She looked quickly at Ritsuko, who blinked innocently. "Why the hell would you be worried?"

"Well for one, you're in _my_ body," Shinji reminded Asuka. "And secondly, you're my roommate. And my _friend_."

Asuka started to open her mouth and produce a comeback, but she cut herself off. What in the hell had Shinji just said? _My friend?_ Who the hell did this pompous windbag think he was, deciding he was worthy enough to be a friend of hers? Just as she was about to take him down a notch, the door to the EVA hanger opened and Misato stampeded over to the gathering.

"Ritsuko, you and I need to talk. _Now_."

The scientist shrugged and looked at Shinji and Asuka. "I'll leave you two at it," she concluded, then followed Misato back the way she'd came. Shinji looked at the German. It was still so strange to look at himself, he thought.

"What should we do?" he said awkwardly.

"Like I have any idea," the second child said rudely, crossing Shinji's arms across his chest. "Why do I always have to come up with the plan?"

"Well, if you'd like, maybe we could go rent videos or something. I'm sick of being indoors at NERV lately."

Asuka sighed exasperatedly. She didn't want to acquiesce to Shinji's idea, but denying it would be an obvious manifestation of her obstinacy. After weighing taking Shinji's suggestion against protecting her pride, Asuka decided on the videos. "But I'm picking out the flicks," she told Shinji.

"That's fine," he agreed willingly with a smile. A smile that was hauntingly genuine.

---

Asuka claimed the couch, as usual, and Shinji sat on a pillow, cross-legged, hunched forward watching the television in earnest. Asuka had chosen one kung-fu movie although she really detested action flicks—she guessed it would at least hold the attention of a primate like Shinji—and one sappy romance flick. After about ten minutes of watching Jackie Chan doing impossible stunts, both of them agreed to give the other film a shot. And here Shinji sat, entranced, really getting into it. A romance film. _God_, Asuka thought to herself moodily, _he's so unmanly!_ But, he was in _her_ body, after all. Was he just trying to act in character? Was he just pretending to like the movie for her benefit? When she could bear the torment of these unanswered questions no longer, she spoke up.

"Do you actually like this movie?" Asuka muttered.

"Yeah," Shinji nodded absently. "It's good. Good acting and stuff. And the plot's pretty good I guess too."

"I think it's boring," she said.

"We could do something else," the third child suggested amiably.

"No, whatever, it's fine."

"If you really don't like it—" Shinji started, but Asuka cut him off sharply.

"I said _it's fine_," the German girl moaned. "Just shut up and watch the movie."

Asuka couldn't help but reflect upon the conversation she'd had with Ritsuko earlier that day. _You have something in common_, she'd said. Asuka had denied it of course, but the scientist was right at usual. Both of them were struggling to adjust. Shinji was trying. _Really_ trying. Suddenly for no reason at all, she felt an overwhelming lust to be close to him. The problem was, of course, that she _was_ him.

"Um, Shinji?"

"Yeah?" the third child said, looking over his shoulder. He laughed.

"What?" Asuka blurted nervously.

"It's still pretty weird looking at myself," Shinji admitted.

"Yeah, well don't get used to it, dimwit," the German retorted. "Hey, are there any leftovers from whatever you made last night?"

"No, Misato finished it off. I could go see if there's anything in the fridge to cook."

"Yeah, fine, I guess," the other replied begrudgingly, feeling Shinji's stomach groaning with hunger. "Do you normally get hungry a lot?"

Shinji nodded. "Yeah. I have a pretty high metabolism I guess. Sorry."

"I thought I told you to stop apologizing!"

"I'm really trying," said Shinji earnestly.

Asuka sighed in annoyance. "What's in Misato's fridge?"

Shinji stopped the movie, got up, and padded into the kitchen. Asuka watched her own hips sway rather femininely as he moved. It caused her to blush, and she shook Shinji's head back and forth, disgusted with herself.

"Not much in here but beer and microwaveable dinners," Shinji frowned. "How does that woman live like this?"

"Who knows?" Asuka replied. "She's really a hopeless case."

"We all have our vices," Shinji informed her.

"Not me," she declared proudly. "Hey, how many beers does she have in there?"

"Um, about five or six. Why?"

Asuka smirked. "Bring 'em out. Let's get wasted."

"Wh-what?" Shinji stammered, turning red in the face.

"You heard me. Let's get hammered drunk."

"Why?"

"You don't need a reason to drink, you just do it," Asuka educated the third child on the ethics of drinking. "C'mon, bring 'em over here. This is what you do when things suck. Drink."

"Misato will get angry if we drink her beer," said the third child.

"She won't be angry with _you_, Shinji, so what are you worrying about? It's me who will have to deal with her shit."

Remembering that arguing with Asuka Langley Sohryu was a futile enterprise, Shinji breathed heavily and carried the beers from the fridge to the living room. "What now?" he asked, clueless.

Asuka snatched one of the beers and popped the can open and started guzzling.

"Hey, take it easy!" Shinji moaned. "That's _my_ body you're putting that into!"

"Right, and you'd better start putting some of that in mine too," the German warned him. "If I stay sober for too long, I might hit you again."

Shinji acquiesced to the girl's demands, and started sipping one of the beers gingerly. Asuka glared at him.

"What the hell _are_ you doing?"

"Drinking the beer like you told me to," he replied.

"That's not _drinking_," the other scowled irritably. "Here, like this." She finished the remaining half of her beer in one chug, coughed a few times, then wiped her mouth and grinned. She stared at Shinji, her eyes glowing. "And _that_ is how it's done."

Shinji nodded nervously, and tried to repeat Asuka's demonstration, but could only manage three gulps before he brought the beer away from his lips and started to cough and hack. The German grinned. "Figures," she asserted. "I've even got you beat in drinking beer."

As time went by, both of them grew increasingly inebriated. After only two beers, Asuka became a rip-roaring drunk and suggested they play a game of _Truth or Dare_.** Shinji, who had loosened up considerably after his first beer, agreed.

"Truth or dare?" Asuka said.

"Dare," Shinji replied.

Asuka thought for a moment before an enormous grin arrested her face. "Undress me," she stated flatly.

The look of shock on Shinji's face was priceless. "Wh…what?!"

"What are you deaf as well as dumb? I said undress me, third child!"

Shinji shook his head, his cheeks glowing partly from the beer and partly from humiliation as he recalled the unfortunate incident in the changing rooms earlier that day.

"No way! I'm not going to do that!"

"Shinji, it'll be just like undressing yourself. What's the big deal?"

"I… I just can't! It's weird!"

"Fine, then I'll do it myself," Asuka replied curtly, beginning to unfasten the buttons of Shinji's shirt. The third child just watched in horror.

"What are you doing?!" he said shrilly.

"Undressing. If we're playing drinking games, we gotta be more comfortable than this, dorkwad."

"_Fine_!" Shinji howled, defeated. "I'll do it!"

Both of their hearts were thundering in their chests as Shinji unbuttoned his own shirt, revealing his plain white tank top beneath. He breathed a sigh of relief that was immediately cut short when Asuka added, "And the pants."

"What? Why?"

"Shinji, really, are you a man or a woman? I can't tell sometimes."

Angrily, Shinji leaned forward. His hot breath, Asuka's breath, tainted with alcohol, tickled her skin. Goose bumps rose along the back of her neck. His trembling hands sought the button on his trousers. Suddenly, Asuka thought that maybe this hadn't been a good idea at all, and she panicked, fearing she might experience another erection. It was incredible unnerving, being undressed by herself, but perplexingly gratifying, having her body do something to Shinji's she'd longed to do many times before. Shinji stripped his pants off Asuka, revealing black boxer-briefs that were unfortunately very tight-fitting, and the outline of his manhood was clearly visible. He looked away quickly, shame filling him like EVA cockpit liquid.

"It… it's your turn," Asuka burped.

"Truth or dare?" Shinji muttered.

"Truth," Asuka said brazenly.

Their eyes locked with one another's. Shinji glared at Asuka, and she was sure that he was about to hit her with something good and hard. What if he asked her questions about her mother? She could always lie her way through the game if the questions were too personal. But then she'd have to live with even more guilt. _Damn it, I should have said 'dare'_, she thought.

"Why did you kiss me that time?" Shinji asked her, the candidness of the question completely taking her aback.

Asuka looked around the room uneasily, then took another long swig of the beer.

"I was bored, remember? No reason," she answered blushing. But Shinji's gaze saw through the deception easily, and she knew it. But he didn't press the issue any further.

"Your turn," he said after a while.

"Truth or dare?"

"Truth."

Silence. Awkward silence. The air in the room was so heavy the adolescents felt as if the Earth's gravity had suddenly increased.

"Are you _gay_?" Asuka blurted out.

"N-no!" Shinji croaked.

"Then why don't you seem interested in girls at all?" the second child demanded.

"I just… I don't know… It's not that I'm _not _interested…"

"Then _what?_" said Asuka hopelessly.

Shinji's cheeks were burning. "I…I can't tell you."

"'Cause really," Asuka babbled on. "Touji and I thought you had the hots for Rei, but clearly that's not it. There's plenty of pretty girls at school you could try asking out. For God's sake, Shinji, even if it was _just for sex_, at least you'd show some signs of being _normal_ for a change."

_Normal. _Was he really that abnormal, Shinji pondered inwardly. Drunk, he started to feel anger, humiliation, frustration, and helplessness swell inside him, the same feelings he felt whenever he confronted his father. In image of his mother Yui rushed into his mind, and for the first time, he hated seeing her face.

"Really, Shinji, I don't know what to do with you!" She burped again. "Why don't you open up to _anybody_? That's all I want to know!"

"Like _you're _one to talk!" he shot back angrily, catching Asuka totally off-guard. "You never let anyone inside your oh-so-special little world of yours, and you flirt with virtually every hot guy you see. Oh, a plain and simple guy like me, someone who's not _normal_, would never have a chance with _someone like you_! How can you be so short-sighted and cruel all the time?! You don't _really_ care about how I feel! You just want to humiliate me even more!"

Misato fumbled with the keys to her apartment. It had been a long day, and the things Ritsuko had told her in confidence disturbed her greatly. She'd have to talk to Kaji, and soon. She fit the key into the lock.

"What _are _you saying?" Asuka roared. "The only reason I humiliate you all the damn time is so that you'll stand up for yourself for once in your damn life!"

"I stand up for myself every day!" Shinji said, fighting back tears. "Do you know how difficult it is to face my father? Do you even have _any clue_?"

The argument was getting personal.

"So it's _all about you_!" the second child retorted. "How typically emotional of you, Shinji! Can't see past the tip of your own damn nose! Everyone else has shit to deal with that's just as bad!"

"Like what?" Shinji growled.

"It's none of your business!"

"Go figure."

Asuka opened her mouth in preparation to unleash a barrage of verbal artillery, but the words that came out were hardly what she'd intended.

"I can't tell you because you'll hate what you'll see!"

Shinji recalled the darkness he'd seen inside of Asuka. And he recalled that he didn't care, no matter how terrifying it was. He sobered up almost instantaneously. "Asuka…" he said softly.

The second child began to weep profusely. The door to the apartment swung open just as Shinji swept Asuka into the most caring embrace he could muster. She turned her head and sobbed against him. "I'm home!" Misato bellowed cheerfully from the doorway to the apartment, but dropped her bag of groceries to the floor when her eyes fell upon Shinji and Asuka huddled together in an embrace and heard him whisper into her ear:

"Asuka…you're the _only thing_ in my life I care about."

---

*Slang for punching someone.

**A game, not necessarily accompanying drinking, similar in nature to 'Spin the Bottle', in which players take turns asking each other personal questions or requesting them to perform outrageous actions based upon the opponent's selection of answering a question truthfully (Truth) or bravely volunteering to do something ridiculous (Dare).


	8. Chapter 8

The groceries fell to the floor, the contents of the bag rattling and spilling across the kitchen tile like bones cast by an oracle. Shinji was immediately drawn to the sound by surprise, looking up from Asuka and into the glazed-over expression of his guardian, Misato Katsuragi. As soon as his eyes met hers, the image of his mother Yui surged forth unbidden into his mind, and he panicked. As a sudden deluge of guilt and shame swept over him, he quickly released Asuka from his embrace and held up his arms like a convicted felon. His mouth opened as if to say something, but he didn't know what to say. No words came to him.

From the doorway to the apartment, the scene unfolded before Misato in slow motion. Previous anger with the enigmatic mumblings of Ritsuko she'd heard earlier that day added to the fact that she was hung-over and, having given herself to Kaji yet again, she felt dirty and miserable. As she'd driven home, she'd pictured Shinji in her mind, busying about the kitchen in Asuka's body, dusting and tidying up. She had longed for the moment she could prepare dinner alongside him. She'd try talking to him about the recent mix-up, try to get him to confide in her. But…

"Asuka…you're the _only thing_ in my life I care about."

_The only thing._

In several millionths of a second, her world was swept into darkness. The justifications for her continued existence were being eroded, one by one, by her failures to feel genuine empathy for everyone in her life. Her failures at being human. Yet true to form, whenever the subject of her social incompetency was broached, she was quick to pass the blame. _It was his fault_ that she didn't know how to love. How to show love. _It was his fault_ that she was repeatedly used and abused by every male figure in her life. _And it was his fault_ that she could not endure the day and maintain her sobriety because her soul had become an emotional minefield, and she was much to afraid to defuse the shortcomings of her reality. _I hate you, father, for abandoning me._

And now Shinji was abandoning her, just like _he_ had. Just like _Kaji_ had before him. It was a cycle of endless repeats, a morbidly hilarious waltz of the Fates and she was never in step to the music. It was more humiliating, this time, that a woman as outwardly decorated and socially applauded as herself could be rejected by an insignificant and timid little child. And twice. First, he'd rejected her as a mother, locking himself away in his room, listening to his cassettes and ignoring her attempts at getting her foot in the door. Then secondly, he'd repulsed her physical advances, her attempts to make him a man. These too were inherently selfish, for it was she, not Shinji Ikari, that so desperately wanted to see him eschew the yolk of adolescence and step into the shoes of responsible adult. It was _she_.

Shinji's mouth fell open wide, and she fought back the urge to vomit, and steadied herself in the doorway. "I… I'll leave you two alone," was all she could muster, every word painstakingly sedate and hollow. She turned and left without another utterance, closing the door quietly behind her. Shinji started to climb to his feet and run after her, but Asuka grabbed his wrist and held him fast in place.

"Shinji!" she breathed heavily.

"What? Asuka, I have to—"

"Stay with me," she said shakily, averting her eyes to the floor, unable to even look at the third child. "Stay with me," she repeated.

"Asuka, I have too—"

"Stay with me."

_Yui_.

"Stay with me…"

_Mother…_

"Don't leave me…"

_I have to…_

"I _need _you…"

_You musn't run away…_

Shinji stood rooted in place, his heart pounding like cannonballs in his eardrums. He was terrified that his words had just obliterated Misato in the most cruel and unimaginable way and he needed to explain himself immediately. But on the other hand, he'd gotten somewhere with Asuka, and she was saying things besides calling him "idiot" or "baka", meaningful things that he may never be privileged enough to ever hear again. He was juxtaposed between the curious world of adolescent pursuits and the brink of manhood. It was a decision Asuka made for him.

Releasing her grip, Asuka let Shinji's hand fall to the floor. She watched the tears leave her eyes and stain the carpet.

"Just _go_," she muttered.

"What?" stammered the third child.

"Go do what it is you _want_ to do," she said coldly, no emotion in her voice. "It's _fine_. I understand."

Shinji looked at Asuka—at himself—and wanted to say so many things. He wanted to tell her everything, right then and there, about how he felt about his father, about his feelings of betrayal and his mother, and of things in his life that made him so blundering and incompetent. He wanted to apologize to her for every time he'd hurt her, and he wanted to tell her how good of an EVA pilot she was. But he told her none of these things; instead, Shinji Ikari uttered a strange syllable, and his hand twitched like a priest splashing holy water upon the bare flesh of the newly indoctrinated, and he ran for the door. The thermostat switched on.

It was freezing outside, and Shinji was only dressed in minimal attire. His teeth began to chatter as he swiveled his head from side to side, trying to tell which way Misato had gone. Suddenly, he saw the residue of puke by the far left staircase, and he was hot on the woman's trail. He took the stairs in sets of two, his bare feet clunking noisily upon the metal. He thought of Misato.

_I musn't run away…_

The moon was hiding behind clouds, and it wasn't very bright, but Shinji found that the second child had remarkable night vision, and he could make out Misato's stumbling silhouette headed for the parking lot. He called out to her, and heard her curse, and he launched into a sprint.

"Misato!"

"Leave me alone! You're just like everybody else!"

"What? No!"

"Shinji, just go back upstairs! You'll catch a cold, damn it!"

Shinji rounded Misato and placed Asuka's hands firmly on the major's shoulders. He shook her.

"Hey! Listen to me for a moment!" he shouted.

Misato started to weep. Shinji let his arms fall to his sides. He hadn't truthfully worked out what he had planned to say to try to console the woman, or even how. He wasn't good at improvising, though, and he knew it.

"I'm bad at things like this," he tried to explain. "I'm sorry I hurt you! I always find a way of hurting people somehow—that's why I just try to stay out of everyone's way… I… I don't know what I was saying back there but it wasn't true. I care about you too, Misato! I care about you a lot!"

Misato couldn't look at him. She couldn't watch the boy try to produce a false apology out of sympathy for her emotional state. But she was still vaguely intoxicated, and his words helped her focus on the here and now.

"Misato I just… I never really had a mom so I don't know how to act… I… I'm not a very good make-believe son to you, am I?" he concluded dimly.

The purple-haired commander began to cry, joyful tears, and she hugged him tightly to her chest. All of her sexual frustration, for the moment, dissipated, and she once more became the motherly figure she had once tried to be for Shinji Ikari.

"I failed you," she said. "I failed you. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Shinji shook his head. "No, no it isn't that at all, Misato. You're wonderful. You didn't have to do any of this for me, but you did. My father never did anything like this for me. He would never let me live with him."

Misato continued to cry, her shoulders shaking as she wept. She just felt glad to have Shinji Ikari in her life. He _was _special. Young and naïve, but _special._ And he meant the world to her.

"Promise me," she whispered in his ear. "Promise me that you will always talk to me about everything you are feeling," she ordered.

"I promise," Shinji said, with a smile that looked terribly out of place on the irascible German's freckled face.

---

The buzzing of the alarm clock at six o'clock the next morning was perhaps the most unpleasant and dissonant noise Shinji Ikari had ever awoken to. He groaned, turning in his bed and pulling the blankets up over his head. He heard a shuffle from outside his room, then a door being opened. He cursed quietly.

"Shinji, get your lazy ass out of bed!" he heard his own voice say. His eyes flashed open, and he sat up in bed, finding himself staring at his own face that was contorted into what he guessed must have been a look of irritability. He wasn't entirely sure.

"What… what time is it?"

"Time to start getting ready for school, nimwit!" Asuka blared like a company of trumpeters.

"School?" Shinji moaned. "Really? Do we have to?"

Asuka's jaw fell open. "Hey!" she retorted, "isn't that _my_ line?"

"Okay, whatever," Shinji muttered, "let me just sleep ten more minutes…"

"Ten more minutes my aunt!" roared the German girl, yanking the covers off Shinji's half-asleep form. She shrieked, throwing the covers back over him quickly.

"You didn't tell me you sleep _naked_!" the second child hissed.

"You didn't ask," Shinji snorted uncomfortably.

"Well here," she said, throwing a pile of neatly-folded clothes down on the foot of the bed. "It's my uniform, and if you so much as get one tiny ounce of dust on it I will slap you senseless, even if you _are_ leasing my own damn body! You hear me, _third child_?"

Shinji looked at the clothes and turned a deep shade of red. "You want me to wear _your _uniform?"

"Better than you going to school in my birthday suit!" she shot back quickly. "Get in the shower. And be quick."

"Are you _always_ this bossy in the morning?" Shinji asked.

"Yes. Now haul ass."

Shinji wrapped the blanket around himself and padded over to the bathroom. Asuka followed him.

"What are you doing?" he said mortified.

"Waiting for you to shower," she answered simply.

"Wait, what? You can't be in here while I take a shower!"

"I'll be damned if I'm not," the German folded Shinji's arms across his chest. "I'm going to be on Shinji Patrol twenty four hours a day, seven days a week until Ritsuko can figure out how to change us back to ourselves. Making sure you don't do anything _perverted_."

"I would never do something like _that_!" the third child hissed defensively.

"Only because you know what I would do to you if I found out you did!" Asuka countered.

"Ok whatever," mumbled the other, switching on the water and waiting for it to heat up. He looked at Asuka. "Do you mind looking the other way?"

"It's my own damn body!"

"It's still embarrassing!"

Asuka sighed deeply. "Oh, for crying out loud! _Fine_!" The German looked at the sink while Shinji Ikari quickly scrambled behind the shower curtain.

"You touch me…"

"…I'm dead. Got it."

Asuka listened, mortified, to the sound of the shower water splashing against her body, her mind conjuring all kinds of disturbing images as to what Shinji was doing behind that flimsy curtain. "Make sure you shampoo my hair," she added, trying to distract herself from the humiliation of everything.

"You know," Shinji said from the shower, "you've had a look at my naked body too, you know…"

"_Believe me_," Asuka said darkly, "there's not much to look at."

Both of them finished the rest of the event in silence. When Asuka heard the faucet stop running, she stood up and handed Shinji a towel. "Dry off," she said. "I'll blow dry my own damn hair."

Back in Asuka's bedroom, Shinji sat on the chair in front of the German's vanity table, his eyes shut, a pleasant smile glued upon his face as he felt his own fingers work their way through Asuka's long hair, massaging his scalp, letting the warm air currents heat his skin. The feeling was so good that goose bumps rose all along his neck and arms.

"Asuka?" he blurted.

"What?"

"This feels really good."

"Don't get used to it."

"Okay."

When Asuka was finished, she threaded hair clips into her long russet bangs, examining herself into the mirror, before handing Shinji the uniform again. She dressed him as quickly as she could, blushing profusely. It was an extremely strange feeling, dressing herself from the perspective of Shinji Ikari. She'd imagined it many times in her head, but now she was witnessing it all first hand. She shook the image from her mind angrily. _What a dork!_

"How do I look?"

"Sexy, duh. You're me."

Shinji giggled girlishly, the covered his mouth, mortified.

"What the hell was that?"

"I don't know," he admitted.

"Don't ever do that again."

"I'll try not to. It felt really strange."

"Whatever, now go make breakfast really quick. I'm always starving in this damn body."

"What would you like?"

"I don't know, numbskull, whatever Misato has around!"

"How about _omuraisu*_?"

"Sure, that's fine."

Asuka followed Shinji into the kitchen and watched him start preparing the food. He was fast, efficient, and seemed to take pleasure in it. This confused the hell out of Asuka.

"How did you learn to cook?" she asked finally, unable to stand him being better at something she rightly knew she ought to be far superior at.

"I don't know… I guess from my mother maybe."

"I thought your mother died when you were young and you don't remember much about her," Asuka said flatly, then checked herself as soon as she'd said it. How the hell had she known that? Had Shinji ever told her about his mother? She didn't recall a moment they'd discussed their parents—it was a topic she was extremely desirous of avoiding. Then how…?

Shinji was staring at Asuka with an equally confused expression. "Did I ever tell you…" he trailed off strangely.

Asuka shook her head. "I… I'm not sure to be honest."

Shinji returned to the stove, quiet for a moment, then said, "Well my father never cooked for me, so I don't know where else I would have learned it."

"Taught yourself maybe?" Asuka offered.

Shinji shrugged. "It's kinda weird, but I don't remember a lot from my childhood. Maybe I don't want to remember…"

"So who _has_ a childhood worth remembering anyway?" the second child said quickly, awkwardly.

"I don't know," Shinji said quietly.

At that moment, Misato walked into the kitchen and grinned. "You kids almost ready? Oh, Shinji, what'cha makin'?"

Asuka's irritability was renewed by Misato's shameless vitality. "Omuraisu," she cut in. "And it's not like _you _had anything to do with it."

"After school today, Ritsuko would like to meet with you both," Misato noted, floating over Shinji's shoulder and gazing down into the pan. Her mouth began to water. "Shin-chan, you're so good at this. I'm _jealous_."

"Hey, easy there cadet, give the guy some room to do his thing," the German said.

Shinji turned around, holding the frying pan, a huge grin on his face. "_Itadakimasu_**!"

---

Shinji's nervousness at going to school as Asuka didn't actually hit him full force until he entered the parking lot. He turned white as a sheep, recalling how he'd been taunted and jeered as a child by his so-called peers. He gripped the door handle of Misato's car as if for fear of his life. Asuka was already out of the vehicle before Misato noticed his apprehension.

"Shin? What's wrong?"

"I can't do this," he whispered.

"Sure you can, what's the big deal?" Their eyes met, and she understood. "Don't worry, everyone already knows, and they're ready to help you out with the adjustments."

"Yeah, that's exactly what I'm worried about," Shinji whimpered, imagining the looks on Toji Suzuhara and Kensuke Aida's faces when they saw him.

And their faces when they saw him were exactly how he predicted. His ears turning purple, he pretended not to notice them and went and sat as quietly and as unobtrusively in his window seat as was humanly possible for a tall, ginger-haired girl in a classroom full of petite, raven-haired Japanese, to be. Asuka seated herself next to Hikari as usual and leaned back in her chair in typical Asuka fashion. She tried not to notice the fact that everyone in the class, the teacher included, was staring at them both incredulously. Hikari leaned over and teased, "My, Asuka, you sure do look hot today!"

"Shut it," Asuka grimaced.

Toji and Kensuke descended upon Shinji like pillaging Huns. Toji barred the window to his left, leaning against the wall, folding his arms and smiling goofily, and Kensuke knelt to Shinji's right holding a camcorder in one hand.

"Guys, _please_ don't make a big deal out of this," he muttered.

"Shinji, is that _really_ you?" Kensuke said. "Please state your name for the record."

Shinji shot him an icy glance. "Not now, Kensuke!"

Toji leaned forward, leering like the pervert he was, his entire face blushing a vibrant pink. "Hey Shinji, during the break, I expect a little courtesy fan service, I hope you know. I might never have a chance like this again."

"Don't you remember what happened the _last_ time you snuck a look at Asuka's underwear?" Shinji protested.

"Well you're not going to slap me if I peek, are you?" the jock spat. "I mean, _come on_, Shinji, you're telling me _you_ haven't… you know… _checked things out?_"

"No!" Shinji half-shouted, drawing still more attention to himself, and he instantly regretted it.

"Alright, class, please be seated," the instructor said. "Let's begin today's lesson." The teacher began leafing through his textbook. "Where were we?"

Asuka raised her arm. "Yes, Shinji," the teacher called.

Asuka frowned. "It's _Asuka_," she reminded him. The teacher reddened. "Oh, right, I'm sorry. _Asuka_."

"Page 118. Complex prepositional phrases."

"Right."

After summarizing the text in brief, the instructor wrote a sentence in English on the black board.

"Okay, who can tell me what parts of this sentence are prepositional phrases?"

Again, Asuka raised her arm.

"Shin…ah...Asuka."

"_in the city' _and _'to the store'_ are both prepositional phrases."

"Correct."

"The sentence is still wrong, though," she added haughtily.

"How so?"

"Because you can't say '_I'm going in the city to the store._' You always say what the place of action is first, _then _indicate direction or where the action is occurring. So you would say, _'I'm going to the story in the city._'"

"Well done, Asuka," the teacher beamed.

"Well now I know for sure you switched bodies," Toji jabbed.

"Anta baka," Shinji shot back quickly, then spent the rest of the class in irritable silence.

---

Ritsuko quickly picked her way through the crowd of whispering NERV employees to where all the commotion was. She espied Maya Ibuki, huddled up by her computer station, clutching herself defensively, sobbing, her blouse partly unbuttoned. She shot an acerbically questioning glance at First Lieutenant Makoto Hyuga, who pointed across the room to his right. She followed his finger to where First Lieutenant Shigeru Aoba had managed to restrain Kaji, the grizzle-chinned double agent grinning and rolling his eyes. He saw Ritsuko, and smiled.

"Will you tell your goons to unhand me?" he half-chuckled.

"What the hell is going on here?"

"He tried to rape her," Aoba said angrily, alluding to Maya.

Kaji snorted. "Now _that's _harsh, Shigeru. I've never forced myself on anyone."

"Shut the hell up!" the other barked. "Ritsuko, let me take this guy outside and let him have it!"

Ritsuko walked over to Kaji and smacked him hard across the face. The resounding whap was so loud that all the conversations going on between the NERV employees ceased forthwith. The slap echoed throughout the chamber.

"Ouch," Kaji mumbled.

"What the _hell_ are you doing here?" the scientist demanded.

"Asking that beautiful programmer over there out on a date," the man gleamed.

Ritsuko slapped Kaji again, from the reverse side, causing a slight blood spray from his mouth.

"That was the last time I'll ask you before I make you simply _disappear_."

Kaji's face suddenly went dark. "Well, now that you mention it, I _was_ trying to figure out where you guys were testing those artificial A.T. fields."

Makoto and Aoba exchanged nervous glances, and Ritsuko grabbed Kaji's arm and pulled him away from his restrainer. "Come with me," she snapped, leading him back down the corridor and into a vacant adjacent chamber, shutting the door behind them and locking it.

"I don't know what you may _think_ you know," the scientist said as Kaji wiped the trickle of blood from his lip, "but it's best you let this trail go cold."

"Can't do it Rit," Kaji grinned, licking his lips. "You know that."

The woman sighed, then sat upon a swivel chair and glared hard at Kaji. "You really don't know what's good for you, do you?" she asked rhetorically.

"Nope."

"I see…"

"I'm going to get to the bottom of this," he said. "Whatever it is, it's so big even Misato doesn't know about it. I want some answers. This is the most tight-lipped I've ever seen anyone around here being about anything. I want to know what's going on down here."

"Have you ever heard of the _Pappus Chain_?" Ritsuko asked after a moment.

"Yes," Kaji nodded. Ritsuko stared hard at him. "No," he admitted.

"In the 3rd century AD, there was a wise Greek named Pappus of Alexandria. He was the last great mathematician of antiquity, and he produced the first outline of an infinite geometrical shape which he called the Pappus Chain."

"I assume you'll be getting to a point in the near future," Kaji said impatiently.

"What few people know is that Pappus had a son named Hermodorus who became infatuated with ancient Sumerian texts and the Egyptian cult of Amen Re. In his later days, he obsessed in the shape his father had described, finding several instances of it within the pyramids at Giza and also on ancient stone tablets dating back to the times of Hammurabi. In the only writing of his that survived, Hermodorus contends that this shape was the watermark of the divine, and that it was the gateway to paradise."

"I didn't come here for a history lesson," the double agent said stoically.

"NERV has also witnessed the Pappus Chain," Ritsuko continued, undaunted. "It manifests in the infinitesimal code the MAGI produce, it appears in the genetic structure of angels. It is a pattern of concentric circles that repeats on into infinity and represents the oneness of all things through which pulses the very heartbeat of the universe. In fact, Gehirn has known about the presence of this shape in the angels themselves since 2000."

She waited for Kaji to do the math. He looked at her, disbelievingly.

" What are you saying?"

"This shape occurs in all of the angels and in the energy the angels give off—A.T. fields. The molecular structure of the LCL fluid that fills the cockpit of each EVA is arranged in the shape of the Pappus Chain. The shape could very well be the key to human evolution, or it could even be the Higgs-Boson*** that science has been searching for since time began. All we can tell here at NERV is that if we understand this shape, we can understand the true nature of the enemy we are fighting."

"So you're experimenting with this 'shape' to try to use the angels' own DNA against them? You're creating a biological weapon."

Ritsuko hushed him quickly. "We've only been able to simulate an A.T. field at best, a weak one that wears off after a small cool-down period. Nothing groundbreaking or even remotely dangerous, let me assure you. All necessary precautions have been taken to—"

"Who greenlighted this project?" Kaji demanded. "Was it Gendo's bright idea to try to turn NERV into a bio-nuclear weapon manufacturing plant?"

"It's much higher then Gendo," Ritsuko almost laughed.

Kaji scrutinized the woman carefully. "How much higher?"

"I don't know," the scientist admitted, like scientists often do when their evidence runs out and their grant money runs dry. "I'm at the very bottom of all of this."

Kaji fumbled in his pocket and produced a cigarette. "You can't smoke in here," Ritsuko said, but he ignored her.

"So you're creating A.T. fields," Kaji mused. He thought a moment. "Does this have anything to do with Shinji and Asuka's latest misadventure?"

"We're not sure about that either," Ritsuko said. "However…"

"However what?" Kaji exhaled deeply.

"However the day it happened, we had outfitted both Unit 01 and Unit 02 with the experimental new force field."

"And you told no one?"

"We couldn't."

Kaji hopped off the table and started walking toward the door. Ritsuko suddenly looked nervous, and made to follow him.

"Where are you going?" she demanded.

"To talk to someone who can give me the answers I need," Kaji said, then left. Ritsuko listened to the sound of his footfalls grow faint, then sighed deeply.

"I'm sorry," Ritsuko said quietly.

*Omuraisu – Japanese rice omelet.

**Itadakimasu – "Let's eat!"

***Higgs-Boson – a hypothetical massive scalar elementary particle predicted to exist by the Standard Model of particle physics. It is the only Standard Model particle not yet observed. An experimental observation of it would help to explain how otherwise massless elementary particles cause matter to have mass.


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's Note:** To the readership of Evangelion Exchange... I am looking to receive some solid feedback on this story. I see a lot of people adding this piece to their favorites or author alerting me, but a low review count. I need feedback if I am to continue, especially since this story is teetering on the brink of moving into the M rating, and the direction of the story has changed and become much darker and more explorative than I originally anticipated. I urge everyone who enjoys this story to leave some kind of comment about what they think of it so far and things they might like to see happen in the future. Thank you.

---

Being Asuka, or a girl for that matter, was beginning to grate more and more on Shinji Ikari's nerves with each passing hour. Whenever he was in the school hallways, he felt extremely conscious of others and their stares, as if they were penetrating him and exposing his innermost thoughts. The feeling was alien and unnerving. As a boy, the third child was used to going unnoticed, and he preferred it that way. He much desired the anonymity of being plain and unspectacular. But in Asuka's body, he had unwillingly achieved some kind of celebrity, someone worth noticing and observing. Simply put, the experience had thrown Shinji's universe into chaos.

As oblivious as the third child was often noted to be—and he freely admitted he was antisocial to a fault—he was aware that Asuka had a reputation at his school, and one she had labored very long and hard to achieve. It wasn't easy being a foreigner in Japan, he figured, but she did have her looks on her side. While to some fitting in might have been a challenge, Asuka had used fear and awe of Western culture to her advantage. All the girls were desirous of Asuka's long legs, her sparkling blue eyes, and of course, her admirably developed breasts, both of which Shinji was want to conceal to the best of his abilities. All the boys wanted a chance to date her, and realistically, Asuka could have chosen any one she wished. The answer to the question of why she hadn't pursued a boyfriend still eluded him.

At the moment, however, that question was the last thing on the poor boy's mind. He was much more focused on being extra careful not to step on Asuka's metaphorical shoes and on trying to maintain her relationship at the school. He wasn't sure exactly what this meant, however. Asuka, Misato, and Rei hadn't groomed him on the social aspects of being Asuka, much less being female, so he had to improvise. He tried to wonder what Asuka would be doing right at that moment if things were normal. Eat lunch with Hikari, the class rep, was really the only thing he could think of. The idea of eating lunch with Hikari made him grimace.

Shinji walked timidly back down through the hallways looking for Hikari, hardly conforming to Asuka's usual flamboyant gait. The two were somewhat similar, he realized, both very pushy, demanding, organized, and perfectionists to the bitter end. More than likely, Hikari would subject him to a long and dreadful diatribe on how a lady ought to act only before making sure Toji and Kensuke weren't getting any bright ideas. In fact, his two, lecherous comrades had followed him _everywhere_ the entire day, from class to cafeteria, recess yard to bathroom. They were relentless.

"What would you say is the most difficult thing getting used to?" Kensuke asked, holding his camera in front of Shinji's face as the three of them marched down the hallway.

"Shin-kun," Toji said. "We're best buds, right? Come on, show me something! _Anything_! Just a tiny peek, Shinji! It'll only be for a second! Come on! It's not like it's _your _body anyway!"

"…and would you say it's been easier so far, or harder, in terms of dealing with the day-to-day?" Kensuke's interview continued.

"Shinji," Toji whispered. "I'll give you 500 yen. Just _one_ peek. You can think of it as a way to get back at Asuka for all those times she clobbered you for something stupid you did!"

"Enough!" scowled Shinji. "You guys, please! I can't take this right now!"

Just then, Shinji spotted the class rep through the throng of high school students, and waved. Predictably, Asuka's height and fiery hair caught Hikari's attention, and the class rep nodded and started picking her way through the crowd in their direction.

"Shinji, if you _don't_ show me Asuka's panties, I'll tell her you _did_ show me them, and a whole lot more. She'll _kill_ you!"

Shinji spun around, angrily. "Are you even serious right now?"

Toji folded his arms brazenly across his muscular chest. "Do I look like I'm joking? I'll tell her you did the dirty right in front of me. While Kensuke filmed it."

"Hey wait-a-minute!" the techno-geek blanched. "Don't involve _me_ in this!"

"_Fine_!" Shinji hissed. "If I show you _one time_ will you just shut up about this?"

Toji nodded. "Scout's honor."

Shinji reddened, looking from side to side to make sure no one was paying attention, and quickly yanked his skirt up, revealing the yellow and white striped side-tie panties he'd been given earlier that morning. Toji's face melted into an indiscernible puddle of blushing features, and Kensuke's nose began to bleed. There was a sudden shriek from down the corridor, and Shinji's head spun as if struck by Asuka's hand in the direction of the sound. Blood drained from his face as he saw the class rep, her hand over her mouth in astonishment, and his own body standing beside her, eyes bulging in his sockets.

"No wait! It's not what you think!" Shinji started to explain pulling the skirt back down. His words were futile.

Light left the hallway. Everyone became shadows. Except Asuka, who stood in Shinji's body, quaking, hands balled into tight fists. Shinji screamed as he saw the flames begin to rise from the back of his school uniform. Asuka uttered something akin to a demonic growl, then began to charge. Toji tried to step in between Asuka and Shinji's imminent destruction, but the German simply karate kicked him into the adjacent wall, and he collapsed to the floor with an agonizing grunt.

"Asuka wait!" Shinji cried, raising his hands as if to deflect a blow. Asuka held her arm out as if about to strike, but then something that might have mistakenly been called mercy registered in her expression as she realized it was her own body she was about to pummel.

"Shinji, as soon as I get my body back," Asuka fumed.

"…you're going to kill me. I know," the third child conceded abysmally.

---

Hikari stared hard at the three of them, looking extremely cross. Kensuke fidgeting in the seat he'd been forced to occupy. Toji's arms were crossed again and he looked rather annoyed.

"I can see we're going to have to keep a closer eye on you, Shinji Ikari," the class rep said at length. "You _and_ your pervert friends."

"I asked him to do it," Toji cut in.

"And he listened to _you_?" Hikari retorted angrily. "What kind of influence are you anyway?"

"Can I just go?" Kensuke murmured. "I have really nothing to do with any of this."

"I was bugging him all day about it, of course I'd wear him down eventually," the jock said triumphantly. He may _really_ be a guy, but as a girl, he's just as _easy_ as any other chic."

A look of abject horror arrested Hikari's face, and she looked as though she might erupt into tears, but Asuka spun around on the desk she'd been sitting on and smirked.

"Easy, you say? Girls are _easy_?"

"Yeah," said Toji defiantly.

Asuka pushed herself off the desk, walked over to Toji, yanked his arm toward her and pulled him out of his seat, then wrenched his arm at an awkward angle between her armpit and forearm. Suzuhara yelped, clawing helplessly at his shoulder, which Asuka could have dislocated easily if she applied even a little more torque. "Let's see how _easy_ it is for you to escape this hold," she gleamed.

"Hey, take it easy, Asuka!" Shinji begged.

"I'll deal with _you_ later, hentai boy!" the second child simmered.

"S…sorry," Shinji said, looking glum.

"It's simple really," Hikari finished. "When at school, Shinji will have to be accompanied by either myself, Asuka, or someone from the illustrious student council at all times."

"What? Why?" Shinji stammered.

"Because you _clearly_ can't be trusted in _my_ own damn body!" the irascible German roared.

"You're blowing this…ouch!...out of proportion!" Toji squirmed.

"Can… can I just go?" Kensuke asked quietly.

"_**No**_!" Asuka, Hikari, and Toji all boomed in unison.

"Look, Asuka, I'm _really_, _really_ sorry I did that… it was a stupid thing to do… I'm sorry if it hurt your feelings, and I'll never do it again. I just… I'm so _useless_."

The word echoed in Asuka's mind, the same words she'd often used to describe Shinji while she berated him—and secretly the way she often felt about herself. Just how much _had_ she affected Shinji's consciousness, she wondered. Was it just because they had switched bodies that she was feeling a strange and unusual kinship to the third child? It sickened her, but excited her at the same time. It made her feel unique; an intensely satisfying feeling for the girl whose synch ratio tests had recently been declining. Being unique set her apart from everyone else. Above everyone else. She didn't want to let that feeling go.

Asuka sighed letting Toji's arm free. He started rubbing it furiously and glared hatefully at her. "Shinji, I hope you know, I don't care if that's your body or what, I'm not missing the chance to give that stupid girl a beat down while I can't get in trouble for it."

"Look," Asuka said to Shinji. "I… I know you probably didn't _mean_ to do it… but you're stupid and you don't think. That's why Hikari and I think it's a good idea to have you followed. There are lots of people who will try to take advantage of you. Your friends are two perfect examples."

"I didn't do anything wrong," Kensuke piped up defensively.

Asuka held up his camera and turned it in the reverse so that the video screen was showing a recorded feed. The video stream showed Shinji walking up a flight of stairs filmed from a rather lurid and explicit angle. Shinji's jaw dropped and he glared at Kensuke.

"Hey, what the hell?" he blurted.

Kensuke turned a deep maroon before fainting in his seat. Shinji looked cross.

"Asuka, I'll just stay home and get my work from my instructors! This is all too hard!"

"Hey dorkwad!" Asuka seethed. "For the moment, you _are_ Asuka Langley Soryu, and that means you better start acting more like her, you got that? No more of this wimp crap!"

"I'm sorry…"

"Damn it, Shinji, stop apologizing! Freakin' stand up for yourself for once, God damn it!"

Toji and Hikari simply stared vacantly at Asuka. The German looked from one to the other. "What? What did I say?"

"You know, it's not so easy," Shinji started. "Trying to be someone who has such a huge, inflated ego and who can't shut up for more than _five_ seconds! It's not like you're even _trying_ to act more like _me_ anyway! Answering every damn question in class! I would never speak unless the teacher called on me! Oh, but sure, I'm supposed to just be able to act like you as if it's natural for me to be loud and bossy and obnoxious! Why don't you just give it a rest for once, ok? God!"

The third child stood up from his chair, looked at each of them, their faces aghast and paralyzed with shock, then walked out of the room and slammed the door behind him.

"Wh…whoa," Toji said.

It took an extra moment or two for Asuka to shake the shock of Shinji's sudden outburst, but she started grinning broadly. "Now _that's_ much more like it," she nodded agreeably.

---

Fighting back tears, Shinji fled the classroom and his friends and made straight for the restroom. He pushed the door open and ran inside, placing his arms down on opposite sides of the sink, staring down into the basin as if he was going to vomit. His heart was racing in his chest, pounding in his ears. There was a tightening sensation in his abdomen, and he felt his skin crawl.

_Who are you?_ Rei's voice echoed in his mind. _Who are you, Shinji Ikari?_

Shinji stopped breathing. Everything else around him faded into a feathery white dreamscape. The third child felt a warm breeze caress his skin. Asuka's skin.

_Who are you, Shinji Ikari?_

"I am Shinji."

_Who is Shinji?_

"Shinji is me. I am Shinji."

_Who is I?_

The question caught him off guard, and he didn't know how to answer it, but for some reason he felt compelled to try. The warmness of the wind calmed him.

"I am I. I am the person who is called Shinji Ikari."

_So you are I because you have been labeled Shinji Ikari and because you are a person._

"Yes. Well… no… I am 'I' because I am a person named Shinji Ikari who occupies this space. There could be another Shinji Ikari somewhere, I suppose, but not here."

_So your existence is defined by the space you occupy._

"No, I guess it isn't."

_Then who is Shinji Ikari? Is Shinji Ikari a person who occupies space?_

"I have my own thoughts."

_You think, therefore, you exist._

"Yes."

_Then the space you occupy is irrelevant to your existence._

"No, if I didn't occupy this space, I wouldn't exist. If it wasn't for this body, I wouldn't—"

But then it dawned on him, slowly and provocatively, that although he was in fact still himself, still thinking like Shinji Ikari, endowed with all the emotions and memories of Shinji Ikari, he was not in fact Shinji Ikari. He no longer occupied the same space he used to occupy.

_Who is Shinji Ikari?_ Rei's voice repeated.

The third child lurched out of the whiteness of the trance and back to the dim reality of the bathroom. He looked up from the sink and into the mirror. There was a crack in it, causing Asuka's image to distort. Shinji stared at the crack for several moments before beginning to scream and clawing at Asuka's face.

"Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!" he repeated, over and over. "I want to go back! I want to go home! Let me go!"

Asuka pushed her way into the bathroom. Shinji regarded her, his fingers caught in the tangles of her hair.

"What were you doing just now?" she blurted quizzically.

"He…help me," Shinji whispered. He started to cry.

"Oh, Jesus…" said Asuka quietly, walking over to Shinji and taking him into her arms. Shinji sobbed against her. "I… look, Shin… I… I'm sorry, ok? I didn't mean all that crap I said before, alright?"

"I… I can't do this…" Shinji stammered.

"What? What are you talking about?"

"I think I'm losing my mind," the third child exclaimed.

"Huh? What do you mean? Start talking some sense, idiot!"

"_I'm starting to forget who I am!_" he told her.

Asuka released Shinji. She looked at him carefully. "I don't understand."

"Asuka, _who_ do you think I am?" Shinji asked.

"You…you're Shinji Ikari. The third child. You pilot Unit 01 for NERV."

Shinji's growing impatience with Asuka was brought to a simmer. "That's not what I mean!" he spat back. "_Who_ _am I?_"

"What the hell are you talking about, Shinji? You're my roommate at Misato's… you're my competition for synch ratio tests… I mean what do you want me to say?"

"Those are all labels," Shinji shrugged. "Things to describe me. But they don't tell you who I am."

"I think I know what you mean," Asuka smirked. "Where'd you get all this philosophy crap all of a sudden, Shinji? You been borrowing Misato's Existentialist books?"

"No…"

"You want an affirmation of your individuality, isn't that right?" The German smiled.

Shinji looked up at the girl with an expression of disbelief on his face. Did she really understand what he was asking, or was her supposition sheer coincidence. What Shinji desperately wanted, _needed_, was to believe that he _was_. He wanted to believe that he existed as something more than a mere placeholder in time. All of his thoughts, his intuition, and his memories—were they meaningless? Did he truly need his own body to be himself, whomever that might be?

Asuka sighed deeply. "Shinji… philosophy is like… something you can talk and talk and talk about, right? But you just don't ever get anywhere by _talking_ about anything, only by _doing_ something. It's a Western phrase, "Actions speak louder than words." It basically means the stuff that you do in your life is more important than the stuff that you think about. Which is not to say quiet people are stupid or don't get anything done, it's just saying that you define yourself through your deeds. Do you know what I'm saying? Come on, work with me here, numbskull!"

"Yeah, I think so," Shinji said through sniffles.

"Good, cause you've got my brain to work with right now, so don't make me look stupid."

Shinji smiled feebly. "That's true, I guess."

"Shinji, the very fact that you and I are having this conversation is proof that we are two unique entities. I… I'm not sure how that works actually, but that's what I was taught at the University of Berlin. Anyway, look, we've got a full day today. Synch ratio tests and a movie."

"Right. Wait, movie?"

"Yeah, Ritsuko suggest you and I go see a movie or something to blow off some steam." She blushed. "Look, I don't know, it's stupid scientist talk I'm sure, but hey, wouldn't you rather be in an air conditioned cinema then piloting a big hunk of scrap metal?"

Truth be told, Shinji would have preferred EVA combat training drills than going to a movie with Asuka.

"Nobody told me about it or anything," Shinji said dejectedly.

"Don't be a lug," Asuka scowled. "It's not every day Shinji Ikari gets the chance to go see a movie with The Great Asuka Soryu."

"But… I'm The Great Asuka Soryu," the third child argued.

"Baka," Asuka retorted.

---

Gendo sat at his desk, hands folded in typical fashion, staring blankly ahead at the first of the giant panels that represented the SELEE Council. The inquisition never failed, the senior Ikari thought, to make intrusions into his affairs at the worst possible moments. His shoulders moved imperceptibly as he shifted slightly in his seat.

"Gendo Ikari," said the first of the councilmen. "You have not recently been as candid with us as we would have hoped one who is almost entirely bankrolled by our organization would be."

"Oh, is that right?" Gendo said sarcastically.

"We expect you to be more forthcoming with us, especially if you _are_ stepping up the time tables on _our_ operation."

Gendo nodded sagely. "It's under control."

"Is it?" another councilman asked. "We have heard there was a debacle with two of your pilots during an experimental test phase. What of these accusations, Mr. Ikari?"

"All three of our pilots are in perfect working order, and they will in fact be running drills this afternoon. If any of you distinguished gentlemen would like to attend, I'm sure I can arrange the correct paperwork be drawn up—"

"This task was given to you under the pretense of absolute discretion," one of the other panels cut in. "It would seem that NERV is, after all, a free-flowing gutter of information, regardless of how sacred that information might be."

Gendo bristled. "There is nothing _sacred_ in what _you_ do," he said. "I alone have been to the brink and gazed upon the designs of the divine while you sit entrenched at your desks behind the barricades of your bureaucracy. You haven't a clue in hell what any of this means."

"Let us not get into a spat like common rogues," the first councilman interjected. "These are difficult times, Gendo, and we can't have the U.N. and their cronies interfering."

"Of course not, and my vice-chairman Fuyutsuki is making sure of that."

"We are embarking on a great odyssey," the third panel said. "The marriage of science and the supreme has enabled us to see beyond what men see."

"We are the astronomers and the prophets of the new millennium," another panel added. "Mankind has proven themselves repeatedly unworthy to enjoy such a renaissance."

"And you?" Gendo said. "Why are _you_ worthy?"

"That does not concern you," the first councilman said firmly. "We are the demigods, and you are our instrument, the portcullis to the divine. You will continue with Project Archimedes, but you will deny our involvement as well as any connection with Gehirn."

"Fine."

"And one last thing, Gendo Ikari."

"And that is?" the chief commander at NERV inquired grimly, preparing himself for the worst.

"We will be sending you a fourth pilot of our designation, and he will be arriving this evening."

The panels disappeared one by one. "Don't fail us," was the final parting phrase issued by the first councilman before Gendo was left in silence. The senior Ikari grinded his teeth angrily.

"Get up," he said. There was a shuffle, and Ritsuko emerged from beneath Gendo's desk, wiping her mouth. "Did you know about the fourth pilot?"

"No," the woman said.

Gendo smacked her hard across the face. "You should have. And you should have told me about it. Now leave my sight before I have you reassigned to the Antarctic."

"Yes sir," Ritsuko replied solemnly.

Gendo enjoyed his solace for another minute before picking up the receiver on his desk and dialing a number. After a moment, there were several bleeps from the other line, followed by an automated message that said: _Code in now_.

"Gendo Ikari. One-one-four-seven-one," the commander said. The line clicked several times, then someone picked up on the other line.

"How may I direct your call?" the operator said.

"Get me the Chief Director of Quantum Sciences, Gehirn East Berlin division. Yes, that's right. Kozou Fuyutsuki. Yes, patch me through, _now_."


	10. Chapter 10

**Authors Commentary to the Readership**

Admittedly, it has been quite some time since I have worked on this piece of fiction, namely due to several real life crisis and big changes, particularly that I am now living in a different country. As is the case with time, one tends to forget things such as this, particularly when reviews of this fiction, which were rather scant to begin with, stopped coming to my email inbox. One day, however, I did receive a review from a particular reader sent to me as a message rather than as a standard review, and it somehow found its way into my inbox. The reader provided such an insightful critique and elaborate praise that I felt it was my duty as a writer to continue this literary yarn. And so we soldier on, further exploring the dark and mysterious psyches of our favorite Evangelion characters…

---

The enigmatic and staid professor Kouzo Fuyutsuki sat in the antechamber of a meeting room in the United Nations Security Council Headquarters in New York City reading a well-worn copy of T.S. Eliot's _The Wasteland_. He'd read the masterpiece of the early 20th century literary genius so many times he could no longer remember how many, and it calmed him considerably in times of great duress such as these. Although he was well-educated, versed considerably in all the arts and sciences of diplomacy, and used to addressing bureaucrats on all sides of the political spectrum, it always made him nervous when he had to lie so blatantly to the most prestigious and prominent governmental institutions of the known world. _The Wasteland_ was literary therapy for his nerves.

"The Wasteland," said a voice, rousing him from his thoughts. "Very difficult read, that."

Fuyutsuki gazed over the wiry rims of his reading glasses at the man who sat opposite him, presumably also waiting to give a presentation. The man was older, like himself, and his silvery hair was thinning, the skin beneath it dappled with the signs of his years. Like Fuyutsuki, he was slender and held the posture of a man of great distinction. His jacket said he was a man of traditional distinction; old, hand-woven tweed reflected the man's clear reverence of the old aristocracy. This was a man of empire and ambition.

"Yes, it is," the professor nodded.

"It's all about death and rebirth," the man continued. "Ironically, it's the only thing any of us can even be sure about. Things dying and new things filling the void they left behind."

"What makes you so sure there will always be something to fill the void?" Fuyutsuki mused, folding the book shut quietly in his lap.

The other man grinned. "_Humanity_," he answered. "We simply can't leave any space unfilled. It's not in our nature. Always creating and destroying until everything's filled up."

Kouzo smirked, amused by the man's simplistic but rational explanation, and by the virtue of his nature, the professor felt obliged to correct the man's error, for nothing about _humanity _or the universe for that matter was rational.

"That's assuming we don't annihilate ourselves first," he observed.

"Ah, a Fatalist," the other replied snidely, leaning back in his seat. "I should have guessed. But humanity is much too stubborn to snub itself out of existence. We think we've got a right to be here, for whatever reason, and we'll fight for it until the system concludes itself."

Kouzo had never thought of himself as a Fatalist. He fancied himself a _realist. _He saw the realities of life unfold before him on a daily basis, and also he saw, with an unfair advantage, that mankind was not only insignificant, but doomed to fail. The angels NERV dealt with and the experiments carried out at Gehirn were all merely humanity's inability to come to terms with the fact that there were things in the universe far greater than itself. Humanity could not simply submit to the idea that human life itself was merely one probable outcome of enormous, nebulous gasses burning at unimaginable temperatures in the infinite void of space. Humanity had been _chosen_ by some great, divine improbability, and it would carry out that esoteric agenda until the end of time.

"Who are you with?" the man asked suddenly, changing the subject.

"Gehirn," Fuyutsuki replied carefully.

"Ah, synergy," the other said, aware only of Gehirn's political front. "Difficult times for you lads, these days."

"And you?"

"Jeffery Jennings with the CLI," Jennings nodded with an air of authority. He noticed Fuyutsuki's blank stare. "That's the _Committee to Liberate Iran_. We're working with infrastructure and international loans. Where are you from?"

"Tokyo3, Japan."

"_Really_?" Jennings said intrigued. "I've heard they're doing incredible things over there. _Mostly military_." He shot Fuyutsuki a scrutinizing glance. "The world is a wasteland," he remarked coolly. "All we can do is our best to survive in it."

The professor felt a buzzing at his pager, and looked at the device clipped to his side. _A-CLASS MEMO from: secmng_kitagawa01940_. Fuyutsuki excused himself politely and stepped into an adjacent antechamber and speed-dialed the International Switch Board circuit.

"Yes, I have an A-Class memo… Fuyutsuki, Kouzo. Three-seven-zero-seven-three. Yes, that's right… Rumi Kitagawa… yes… patch it through."

"Fuyutsuki?" came Gendo's muffled voice.

"Yes. I'm a bit indisposed at the moment."

"I don't give a rat's ass if you're on the moon right now, Kouzo," Gendo said angrily. "I just spoke to the hell hounds."

"Ah, and what does the devil bid of us at this late hour?"

"We're denying _everything_."

"I don't understand," Kozuo said quietly as if someone might overhear.

"They want us to deny our involvement with SEELE and Gehirn. Everything. Deny everything."

"I can't. I work for Gehirn. They know that."

"You're only an on-site consultant at this point," Gendo reminded him. "It's not like the old days anymore."

"Ikari, I don't have time for this."

"_Listen _to me," The senior Ikari fumed. "_They_ are sending us a spy. A fourth pilot."

"What?!"

"Yes. And they don't know… I don't _think_ they know about what happened with the first field test of the QUAD Project."

"You mean what happened to your son."

There was a moment of silence on the other line. "Yes," Gendo said sharply. "We're denying that too, of course."

"How can you assure the silence of the two pilots?"

"Leave that to me. I want you to tell those U.N. hypocrites that we're not building weapons for the private sector, and that we're trying to create a wireless energy generator for the EVAs."

"Was there some kind of information leak? Kaji maybe?"

"Don't worry about _him_," Gendo seethed. "He's been fed so much disinformation at this point he can't tell his ass from his elbow anymore. He doesn't even know SEELE is bankrolling this operation."

"He'll make a stink about it if he feels like you're misleading him."

"He can be _dealt with_," Gendo replied. "I just want you to deny everything. You're on a plane back to Japan in three hours. Be on it."

The line crackled, and went dead. Fuyutsuki looked at his phone and swore.

---

Kaji had been waiting at Narita airport for nearly an hour, leaning irritably on a column at the bottom of the escalators of baggage claim. It wasn't that the plane was delayed, but rather in his rabid quest for information he'd arrived a full forty-five minutes ahead of schedule. The fourth EVA pilot was arriving, sent directly by SEELE, and this was his best chance to get the information he needed once and for all. He'd already told the NERV agents who had come to pick the boy up that they'd been misinformed, and that he'd been sent by Gendo directly. Born with a silver tongue, and by waving a couple thousand yen in their faces, it wasn't difficult for Kaji to persuade them to leave.

He started thinking about Misato and their last abysmal love-making session. He hadn't been mentally there at all, and she'd just lain there on his bed like a dead fish, just _taking it_. She didn't even cry afterwards like she sometimes did—she'd just raided his fridge for beer and left without even taking a shower.

His jaw was still sore from when Ritsuko had hit him. Their altercation still annoyed him, but not as much as the cryptic and useless information she'd fed him. He could decide whether they had been lies force-fed to her by Gendo Ikari himself, or whether there was truth to her scientific ramblings. Pappus of Alexandria? What the hell _was_ that woman talking about? Was everyone losing their damn minds?

Kaji was about to go outside for another smoke when he noticed the silvery-haired teen slowly descending the escalator, his red eyes bright and alert. He was wearing blue jeans, a blank white t-shirt, and carried a nondescript laptop bag. He looked incredibly out of place and almost unreal. The double agent headed over to the bottom of the escalator and waited. He raised his arm in a typical Western greeting.

"Hello, my name is Kaji. Are you the person named Kaoru Nagisa?" he asked in horribly broken German.

The boy smiled broadly. "I can speak Japanese," he said, his voice unusually sultry. "Are you from NERV?"

"Y-yes," Kaji stammered embarrassed. "I'm sorry, I didn't know you spoke Japanese."

"Would I be here if I didn't?" Kaoru played.

"I guess you wouldn't. Anyway, come with me please."

"Is there something you wanted to ask me, Kaji-san?" the boy asked, his powers of intuition frighteningly polished.

"Did I say I had a question?"

"You have the look of a man who has many questions," Kaoru replied.

"We'll get to that," said Kaji, showing the boy to baggage claim.

---

Kaji sat in silence, risking a glance every so often in the rear-view mirror at the would-be fourth EVA pilot. Each and every time, the child would be staring directly back at him, and Kaji would draw his eyes away quickly with embarrassment.

"You do not trust me," Kaoru said at last, breaking the silence. "I am an _outsider_ who you are forced to take _within_."

"Huh?" Kaji mumbled.

"You must think I am a spy of some kind, like the James Bond of your cinema."

Kaji laughed. "No, I hardly think you're a spy, kid. But it is a bit unusual you showing up here all of a sudden. You have to understand your presence has quite a few people on their toes."

"Because I was sent by SEELE."

"Exactly."

"Perhaps it is not SEELE you have to fear at all," the silver-haired boy remarked.

"What do you mean?"

"I have heard an expression something to this effect," Kaoru replied. "_All we have to fear is fear itself._ Have you heard this before, Kaji-san?"

"Of course," the other nodded for fear of sounding stupid. He _had_ heard the expression, but he'd never really contemplated its meaning.

"Do you know what it means?"

"Yeah it means fear is stupid, and you shouldn't be afraid of anything."

"Moreover, it means that fear is a powerful weapon and a debilitating emotion. It prevents you from getting something you want. It causes you to feel hatred towards someone or something you don't understand. I find it is the most universal human emotion. Second only to this insipid and irrational thing you call _love_."

"Right, I get it," Kaji surmised. "Fear can be a tool used to get what you want."

The fourth pilot's eyes sparkled. "Do you fear me, Kaji-san?"

"Of course not. Should I fear you?"

"That remains to be seen," Kaoru answered enigmatically.

They drove along in silence for a while longer.

"What do you know about A.T. fields?" Kaji asked at last.

Kaoru looked thoughtful for a minute before replying, "It is a name given to an incredible concentration of energy that these entities you call Angels are able to produce. They seem to be able to protect the angels from your implements of destruction, your weapons, and your EVAs."

"Yes, yes, that's the basics," Kaji said impatiently. "But I mean, do you know how they are made?"

Kaoru stared hard at the other.

"Why would you want to know?"

"Because."

The fourth pilot arched an eyebrow. His crimson eyes were fixed upon Kaji.

"Because…?"

"Because I want to know why an organization would want to try to reproduce them."

Kaoru smiled. "You are referring to synthetic force fields. Artificially produced A.T. fields."

"Yes," Kaji admitted.

"NERV is creating them," the silver-haired boy said after a moment of taking pleasure in Kaji's ignorance. "They are doing so with the financial endorsement of my company, SEELE."

"I'd guessed that. Tell me more."

"You still do not understand, do you, _lillim_? They are meddling with such things out of _fear_. They fear the angels who would open their eyes to the truth. They fear being destroyed or being reduced to tiny specs of dusts in the cosmos."

"Stop it!" Kaji groaned. "Why must everyone speak in riddles? The only thing I want to know is _why?_ What is the end result? Why are they trying to produce A.T. fields?"

"I just explained it to you."

"It's not _fear_!" Kaji rasped. "It's always a self-serving end and there's always someone at the very top of it convincing everyone else to serve that end! Is it something as bland and uninspired as world domination? Is it for money? What, God damn it! What is it!"

Kaoru frowned and stared at the driver. "You are disappointingly uncreative," the boy said, and remained quiet for the remainder of the trip back to NERV headquarters.

---

After a stressful day of synch ratio tests, Shinji couldn't wait to get home and sit in a bathtub and just forget about everything that had happened. He just wanted to turn his mind off, to stop thinking. The more he thought about anything, the more he realized he was afraid of the future and what it had in store for him. Asuka had other plans.

"Alright," the German boomed, cranking up Shinji's vocal chords to new volumes. "What movie do you want to see, Shin-dork? Here's the list."

She thrust a print out in the third child's face.

"Do we really have to do this?" he asked.

She frowned, nodding vehemently. "Of course we do. It's what the good doctor ordered."

"I hate doctors," Shinji muttered.

"If you don't pick something I'll pick it for you and you'll probably hate it."

"Here, you just pick it then," he said, pushing the paper back toward her. "I'm not good at this kind of stuff."

"Not good at _this kind of stuff_? Shinji, it's _just_ going to a damn movie!"

"Yeah, I know, but I don't go to the movies."

"Oh, holy Hell you are so utterly _useless_, Shinji!" Asuka droned on. "Just point at a name and we'll go see that one!"

"Fine!" Shinji said despairingly, and pointed to a random film which turned out to be Asuka's latest favorite, one she'd seen twice already. She tried to hide her giddiness.

"You're going to hate this one," she observed.

"Whatever."

It was a romance flick, the plotline very much like the mangas Asuka kept around her room. While Asuka shoveled handful after handful of popcorn into his mouth, Shinji sat mesmerized by the drama unfolding on the screen. During World War II, two childhood friends had drifted apart, only to be reunited in a prison camp in Germany. It was heartbreaking to watch the boy's would-be-girlfriend be incinerated in a gas oven. The boy, who was not aware of her death, spent the rest of his life after being set free by Allied troops trying to find her. By the end of the film, Shinji was balling his eyes out.

Asuka stared at him incredulously. "Sh…Shinji? Are… are you—"

Shinji hugged Asuka and wept. "I'm sorry," he said through his tears, "but it's just _so_ sad!"

Asuka started laughing. "It's just a movie you twit! Get off me!"

Shinji looked up into his own face. And in that face he saw sympathy, and he loved it. He desperately craved Asuka's pity, and it made him weak of character, but he couldn't help it. He loved those rare moments when the German girl would just hold him against her and let him cry. He loved that feeling of being taken care of… that feeling of being safe… of being _loved_.

As the credits started to roll and the lights came on, Asuka found Shinji's hand and lightly rested her fingers atop it.

"Shinji, let me ask you something…"

"Ok." Shinji conceded nervously.

"When we kissed that time—" Asuka felt her hand tense beneath her own. Always this line of questioning made Shinji Ikari uncomfortable. "—did you… I mean… you know… did you… did you _like it?_"

Shinji was blushing furiously while he tried to formulate a reply that wouldn't earn him a smack across the face. When he couldn't think of one, he made his long-overdue confession.

"Y…yeah I did… I'm sorry."

Shinji realized he had apologized to the German again, and though he'd been trying not to be so apologetic at her request, every so often he would slip up. But she didn't say anything or berate him. She just sat quietly, staring at the credits rolling. At length, she removed her hand from Shinji's, and got up.

"I'll meet you in the lobby," she said coldly. "I've got to go to the bathroom."

Asuka stood in the men's bathroom, staring at Shinji's face in the mirror. She didn't know why, but she felt sick as though she might heave, and it wasn't just the oily movie theater popcorn. In the pit of her stomach, or perhaps in the cradle of her soul, Asuka felt something inside of her crumbling away, as if the fibers of her reality were being pulled out of the pattern. Never before had she hated and loved Shinji so strongly as she did at that very moment. She detested Shinji for his honesty, but she loved him for what that honesty meant. Her world, which was defined by starkly-painted and dutifully carved out binary opposites—love, hate, acceptance, rejection, success, failure—was now muddled in shades of gray. She felt like she had no ground to stand on, like something inside of her was being erased, her soul stretched thin.

_Who are you, second child?_

Asuka turned to find herself staring at the first child, still wearing her plug suit, leaning against one of the bathroom stalls, her arms, face, and hips thickly bandaged.

"What are _you_ doing here?" Asuka snarled.

_You called me here,_ Rei replied. The words sounded, but her mouth didn't move.

"No I didn't! The last person I want to talk to right now is _you_!"

_Who am I?_

The question struck Asuka like a slap to the face. The ludicrousness of it caused Asuka to curl Shinji's hands into tight fists.

"You're Rei, you idiot! Who else would you be?"

_This word 'Rei' which means both 'ghost' and 'zero' in this language defines that which is I, yet I am neither a ghost nor a number. Tell me, Asuka Langley Soryu, what it means to be I._

Asuka turned back to the mirror. "Don't be ridiculous! I don't have time for this. I…"

_You turn away from the very question that haunts you._

"What question?"

_Who is Asuka Langley Soryu?_

"I know who I am! I'm the best EVA pilot alive! I'm the sexiest girl at school, and everybody loves me or wants to _be_ me! I'm Asuka!"

_Yet you appear, at least to me, to be Shinji._

"Anta baka!" the German roared. "Even if I am in this stupid body, I'm still Asuka!"

_Then your body has nothing to do with who you are._

"Yes! No, wait…"

_Do you not feel this paradox at the core of your soul? Or does fear prevent you from realizing that you are not in fact a physical entity at all, but part of the universal pulse that binds all things together?_

"Leave me alone!" Asuka pleaded. "Just… just leave me alone!"

_Do you want to be alone? Are you ever truly alone?_

"Stop it! Please! I beg you! S…stop it!"

_You musn't run away…_

The phrase surged forth unbidden into Asuka's mind. She turned to send a barrage of acidic, German choice phrases at Rei, but the girl had vanished. Asuka blinked, looking around the bathroom. She heard only the sound of the mellow washroom music playing. She looked back at the mirror and stared at Shinji's face.

"I _am _Asuka," she told herself. "I am Asuka Langley Soryu. No one can take that away from me. _No one_."

---

Misato picked the two teens up at the movie theater. She was in generally high spirits sans the nagging feeling that she was being left out of the loop about something. Ritsuko had told her earlier that NERV was secretly studying the DNA of the angels, but she hadn't said exactly why. As far as Misato was concerned, the angels were the enemy, creatures to be destroyed, not researched. And the fact that this was going on without her knowledge pissed her off, and she planned to confront Gendo about it directly. Kaji, she was sure, was probing his usual sources for information, but she couldn't even be sure about his level of involvement in the scheme. Yet at the moment, all she cared about was Shinji Ikari.

These were difficult times for both the second and third child. She knew she truly couldn't grasp the difficulties both the adolescents were facing, but she'd still try her best to help them both through it in any way that she could. Still, she felt powerless. Helpless. All she could do was continue to do what she'd already been doing: be the best guardian she could. That entailed listening, which was exceedingly difficult as Shinji was want to keep his most profound feelings locked away inside his mind, and Asuka kept hers carefully veiled beneath her boisterous extroversion. What could Misato do but wait, watch, and maybe, if the situation called for it, pray.

She leaned against the driver's side door waiting for them to emerge from the cinema. She suddenly felt a weird feeling inside of her, a vehement hope that the two wouldn't emerge from the movie laughing or holding hands or anything that might signify closeness. It was a selfish feeling, and she didn't know why she felt it. Jealousy? If Shinji had Asuka, who did that leave her? Kaji was simply a leaf on a tree branch in late autumn, tenuously holding on before a fated winter. Such flirtations were not meant to last, she knew. Their relationship was one of the flesh, not one of the heart. She longed for _real_ companionship. A _real_ connection. Whatever that might entail.

Misato's relationship with Shinji had grown more and more complex the more she'd hungered to understand the quiet and timid third child. Beneath his reserved exterior, she knew, was an intricate web of deep emotions, an infinite wellspring of compassion and intense feelings. That wellspring, she'd often thought, was completely untapped, and she feared that if someone didn't draw it forth soon, it might dry up on its own accord. He might become what she feared most: Gendo Ikari.

Major Katsuragi's prayers were answered when Asuka and Shinji finally emerged from the duplex, neither of them speaking, and both looking rather tired. Misato waved happily, trying to mask her mirth, and failing horribly.

"How was the film?" she asked.

"Stupid," the German lied.

"Shinji?"

"Ok, I guess," the third child said quietly.

"Well aren't you both rays of sunshine?" she replied, suddenly annoyed by what she had only minutes before desired.

The three of them packed into Misato's questionably safe coupe and sped off back downtown. The sun was setting across the valley. Long, talon-like clouds drifted languidly across a bleak sky. In the distance, the clouds were thick and deep blue, promising rain. Misato looked in the rear view mirror at the two EVA pilots. Both were staring wordlessly out their respective windows, lost in thought. Misato desperately wished she could read minds, to know what they were thinking. But if she tried to read Shinji's mind, whose mind would she be reading, she wondered. Shinji's? Asuka's? Both? Just how much had this great exchange changed them both?

It was difficult to tell. She had noticed slight changes in their personalities. Shinji had become noticeably more vocal and slightly short-tempered at times, traits that were unique to Asuka. As for the second child, she seemed somewhat more outwardly emotional. Although she was still austere and chastising, especially toward Shinji, she was prone to moments of intriguing quietude. The very trait that defined Shinji Ikari. Were the two children simply trying to step into the role of the opposite pilot, or was there something else going on, something beneath the surface that Misato couldn't understand?

"What's for dinner tonight, Shinji?" she asked autonomously, not really interested in a reply.

"What would you like?" the third child answered predictably.

"Can you cook American food?"

"Huh? Like what?"

"I don't know… whatever Americans eat."

"I'm not entirely sure what that is," Shinji admitted.

"Cheese burgers," Asuka intruded suddenly. "_All _Americans eat cheese burgers."

"I don't know how to make cheese burgers," said Shinji apologetically.

"I do," Asuka boasted. "I learned when I did a semester abroad at New York University."

"You've been to America?" Shinji asked, intrigued.

"Well of course I've been to America," Asuka sighed. "That's why I'm so worldly."

"What was it like? Your study abroad?"

"Easy," Asuka continued to boast. "Americans are very stupid. They party a lot and never get anything done. You can goof off a lot and still pull highest marks."

"Wow, really?..." Shinji trailed off.

In the driver's seat, Misato was fuming. Asuka's arrogance was managing to get under her skin, and Shinji's interest in the German's worldly exploits grated on her nerves even further. She looked at Asuka sharply in the mirror, but upon seeing Shinji's face instead, she suddenly felt the urge to break down and cry. She floored the accelerator.

"Well, that sounds like a cool experience, anyway," Shinji was saying. "I visited America once when I was very little. I don't really remember it. I was—"

A vision came to him abruptly. He was Asuka still, and he was standing before a great series of steps outside an enormous building that rose high up into the sky. He was younger than Asuka was currently, but her exact age he couldn't tell for sure. All he did know was that at that very moment, he was experiencing the most vivid hallucination he'd had yet.

The wind was bitter and cold, like late autumn, and the air was thick and full of smog. It was noisy, and he could hear people speaking in multiple languages all around him—English, French, Chinese, Arabic, and several other languages he couldn't pinpoint. The signs were all in English, as were the school books he was holding in his arms. He was dressed in a long black dress. His hair was shorter and finely braided. His boots were thickly padded and made for cold weather. Shinji knew at once he was in America. In New York City.

"Are you lost?" a voice said.

Shinji turned to find himself staring at a young man, probably in his early twenties, his jaw completely carpeted in stubble much in the same way Kaji wore his facial hair. The man had a roguish look to him, wavy, dirty-blond hair and sharp blue eyes. He was dressed in blue jeans and a track jacket.

"Are you looking for someone?" the man repeated.

Shinji suddenly became aware that not only did he understand English, but he spoke it. Fluently.

"No, I go to this school," he heard himself say.

The man raised an eyebrow, looked up the steps, then back at Shinji.

"You're joking, right?"

"No, I don't joke."

"This is NYU. The most prestigious university in the city."

"I know."

"How old are you?"

"Twelve."

"Uh huh…"

The man continued to stare at Shinji, making the third child nervous and slightly irritated.

"Are you the daughter of a teacher?"

"I'm a student," Shinji said, as if reading from a script. "My name is Asuka Langley. I'm looking for the Office of General Admissions. I'm supposed to start classes today."

The man laughed heartily. "Asuka Langley," he repeated. "How old did you say you were?"

"Twelve. Almost twelve and a half," he added for emphasis.

"I don't think twelve and a half year olds study at this university, Asuka Langley. Maybe you have the wrong—"

"I've been awarded a full scholarship to this stupid school," he blurted suddenly. "I've got these books and I'm supposed to go find out where the classes they belong to are located. So either you can help me out with it or stop wasting my time."

The man looked taken aback for a moment, before he grinned. "Alright," he said. "I'll show you where the office is, Asuka Langley. But under one condition."

"Yeah, what's that?"

"I'm a film student and I'm shooting a scene this Saturday," the man explained. "I need a girl about your age for one of the scenes. I'd like _you _to be my leading lady, Asuka Langley." He winked.

"Well _of course_ I'll do it," Shinji blurted without thinking, even though he felt an incredible ominous feeling stir within him the second he replied. "I was _born_ to be an actress!"

"Great, then it's settled. Here let me take your books…"

"Shinji!" Asuka jolted him back to reality. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

Misato and Asuka were both staring at him, he realized. They were in the parking lot of Misato's apartment. He shook his head, confused.

"What? What happened?"

"You just said 'I was born to be an actress' out of the middle of nowhere."

"What?" Shinji stammered, turning red from ear to ear. "I did? I don't remember saying that!"

Asuka looked at Misato.

"I heard you say it too," the purple-haired woman said. "Shinji are you feeling alright?"

"Yeah, I just… I just need to be alone for a little while."

Asuka and Misato exchanged glances again.

"You sure you're alright?" Misato queried.

"Yeah, fine."

"Asuka's going to make cheese burgers tonight," she continued. "Don't take too much time away from the real world."

"Right. Got it."

The three of them got out of the car and headed back to the apartment. As soon as they were inside, Shinji locked himself in his room, and Asuka stared for a minute at the closed door before heading into the kitchen. "I need meat and cheese, Misato," she said.

"It's all there. I was going to make curry."

"Ok."

"If you need anything, I'll be in my room," Misato said, padding softly into her bedroom and shutting the door behind her.

She sat on her bed quietly for several minutes, then picked up her cell and phoned Ritsuko. After a couple of rings, the scientist's voice sounded on the other end.

"Ritsuko speaking."

"Rit, we need to talk."

"What about?"

"The kids. Something's going on."

"Can it wait? I'm busy."

"No it can't. Where are you?"

"My apartment."

"I'll be there in twenty minutes."

"Wait, Misato—"

---

Misato rabidly pressed the doorbell to Ritsuko's apartment. A few moments later, the door opened.

"Rit, something serious is—"

Kaji grinned from ear to ear, sipping champagne. "Well this is certainly a pleasant surprise, Mi-chan," NERV's informant cooed. He noted the shock on Misato's face. "Well don't just stand there, come on in. Plenty of Asahi* to go around."

Misato stormed past Kaji, causing him to spill some of the champagne. "Christ, Misato, this shirt cost me ¥8,000. Egyptian cotton!"

"Send me a fucking bill," the purple-haired commander retorted, then regarded the scientist. "What is _he _doing here, Ritsuko?"

"It turns out NERV's been given a new EVA pilot, Misato. Kaji and I were just discussing the details."

Misato's jaw dropped. She looked from Ritsuko to Kaji, who shrugged. "New pilot?" she stammered. "On whose authority?"

"SELEE's authority, apparently," Kaji interjected. "Care for a cold one?"

"Yeah, whatever," Misato grunted. Kaji tossed her a beer and she caught it. "But why?"

"To spy on us, more than likely," the informant sighed matter-of-factly.

"Kaji, please," Ritsuko chided.

"Will somebody please tell me what the hell is going on?"

"My guess," Kaji gleamed, tossing himself down on Ritsuko's couch and wrapping his arm around the scientist's shoulders, "is that it has to do with Ritsuko here and her little pet project, am I right, hon?"

The scientist bristled slightly, but didn't resist when Kaji began to twirl her hair with his fingers. Misato glowered at him with the eyes of a demon.

"I suppose it's pointless not to read her in at this stage of the game. She'll find out eventually."

"Out with it," Misato said flatly, visibly steaming with rage.

"I already told you before that NERV's been running tests on the angels, gathering data and such."

"Yeah, so? We've been doing that since this project began."

"What I didn't tell you," the scientist continued, "is that we've started to use the data the MAGI have collected to artificially recreate synthetic A.T. fields."

Misato shook her head. "I don't get it."

Kaji frowned. "What's not to get. They're playing God over there at NERV. They're trying to create their own angels out of putty."

"Not exactly," corrected Ritsuko. "Recreating an entire angel, given the technology available to us today, is simple impossible. The angels have literally billions of quantum proteins encoded in every cell. It could take decades to replicate a single one, even with the support of CERN and the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva. Still, our research has been able to isolate which of those cells are responsible for the formation of the A.T. fields, and those are the ones we're looking at."

"Okay, but why?" Misato said, guzzling the beer.

"Because mankind has reached an evolutionary dead end. Civilizations are crumbling, and after 60,000 years of our existence, this world of war and hurt and pain is all we've been able to produce. Those individuals bankrolling this experiment believe in loftier ideals. They believe that the Age of Reason we live in has drawn to a close, and that things like faith and man's irrationality will be the undoing of the human race. The point of QUAD Project—that's Quantum Angel Deconstruction Project—is to accelerate our evolution."

Misato crunched the empty beer can in her fist. "I can't believe you are serious! Don't you remember what happened the last time you tried something like this? You instigated the Second Impact! The angels are our enemy! That's why we created the EVAs, to fight fire with fire!"

"Unless," Kaji said, "all we're doing is fanning the flames. SELEE's new position is that the angels we're spending so much time and energy destroying are actually our stairway to heaven, and not our opponents at all."

Misato shook her head, slightly inebriated, and more confused than ever. "That can't be right… the angels try to destroy mankind and everything we have built."

"Or perhaps," Ritsuko added, "they're trying to take something back that isn't ours."

A quietude fell across the room. "What are you talking about Ritsuko?" Misato muttered gravely.

"In the very depths of NERV," the scientist began, "there is a room, and in that room there is a thing that has been there since the beginning of all this. I strongly suggest you forget all of this, for your own safety and for your own good, but if you want answers, one might seek out the three hundred and fourteenth level of the Geofront."

"There are only two hundred and eighty-eight levels of the Geofront," replied Major Katsuragi.

"Officially, yes," Ritsuko said, scrutinizing Kaji carefully. "I know there's nothing I can do to stop either of you going, so I'll just suggest you both go together. For your own safety."

"What's down there, Rit?" asked Misato.

The scientist sighed deeply. "The cradle of Evangelion," she answered.

*Asahi, a Japanese domestic beer.


End file.
